On The Ride
by routineriotx
Summary: After Sam's childhood crush and early college girlfriend from Lawrence reintroduces herself as a hunter, she joins the Winchester boys on their nation-wide adventure to rid of demons, monsters, and the Devil himself. Sam x OC
1. 01

Sam Winchester opened his eyes slowly, his eyes trying so hard to adjust to the darkness of the car. He had fallen asleep when the sun was still out, so his body was struggling with adjusting to the sudden nighttime. His arms stretched out behind him, and his knuckles brushed against the felt top of the car, the vibrations of the machine running throughout his body and jolting him awake. Slowly, he rubbed his face, scratching his palm over the stubble before asking in a bed-ridden voice, "What time is it?"

gAbout 10 PM," a southern accent answered from the driver's seat. Looking between his fingers, Sam spotted the outline of his older brother's figure; small nose, chin stuck out in pride, eyes glazed over to keep the sun from blinding him, Dean Winchester had his eyes stuck on the road. "You slept like the baby you are."

gShut up," Sam muttered, rubbing his face with his hands to wake up his muscles. "Where are we?"

gWhat is this, twenty questions?" When Sam shot his older brother a look, he relented mostly because he saw how exhausted Sam still was. Although he had been sleeping a lot lately, he slept in fits, literally. He would go into trances, lost in his nightmares as he yelled the name of his now-dead girlfriend, Jessica. He had been a witness to her death. She had been killed by a demon- a real demon, a servant of the Devil. In Sam and Dean Winchester's world, monsters existed, and they seemed to hang out around every corner these days.

Dean shut his sarcasm off and said, "Black Water Ridge, Colorado. Dad left these coordinates in his journal, so I decided to follow them. He might be here, and if he's not, we'll definitely find some clues. But first things first- beer time."

Dean swung the Impala into a parking spot at a bar, the cheesy western music already heard from outside. Sam made some last second efforts to wake himself up, ranging from massaging his ear lobes to slapping his facial cheeks lightly, but it didn't seem to work. He eventually gave up, sighed, and followed his brother into the bar at a sloth pace. Thanks to his giraffe legs, every step he took pretty much doubled Dean's, so they entered the bar together.

Dean went straight to the bar, tucking their father's journal underneath his arm. A week ago, Sam was a normal kid just awaiting his acceptance letter into the Stanford law school, one he would later get...

On the same day that Dean showed up on his front doorstep.

To keep it simple, Dean and Sam's mother had been killed when they were very young by a demon in a manner very similar to how Jessica was killed. The brothers were raised by their father to become monster hunters so they could find and kill the thing that had taken their mother away from them. Sam, fed up with this lifestyle, had left his brother and father and gone to Stanford. But as their father had left for a hunt and hadn't been back in a few years, Dean became concerned enough to contact Sam, who hadn't been so willing to drop everything and search for their father. But after Jessica's death, Sam had nothing left to lose, so he agreed to hit the road with Dean.

Now, Sam thought, shaking his head, he was a monster hunter once again. This future, this occupation, is one he had despised ever since his freshman English teacher told him he could be anything he wanted to be and didn't have to be a hunter like his dad and brother. It seems that old habits really died hard.

Sam sat on the stool besides Dean, who ordered them two bears and flirted harmlessly with the bar tender, who giggled at his lame pick-up lines Sam had heard him use on plenty of other girls. Sam, bored with their conversation, began to aimlessly look at the bar around him. Nothing too impressive, but Sam liked to memorize every moment of his life. One thing he had learned when he was younger through hunting is that no piece of information was insubstantial.

Spotting a beautiful blonde sitting by herself and writing vehemently at the other side of the bar, Sam found himself entranced by her. As the dim bar light hit her blonde hair, he thought of Jess. Although it hurt, he couldn't look away. Dean, who was going off about something now that the bar tender was gone, quieted and followed his younger brother's look. Dean gave a low whistle and said, "Well, if you won't, then I will."

Sam wasn't sure what made him do it, but he spoke up. "Dean, no..."

It didn't matter; Dean's eyes were on the prize and soon, his hands would be as well. As someone who lied out of his ass for his job, Dean had inadvertently become somewhat of a ladies' man. He knew all the right things to say, and knew how to work himself out of any sticky situation.

Sam felt his ears prick up the moment Dean entered the girl's bubble by sitting on the stool next to her, calling for a shot and leaning over as he did so.

gSo," Dean said, leaning back into the seat and flashing a grin at the girl. Sam struggled to hear their voices above the sounds in the bar- people laughing, music blaring, pool balls clinking together. He didn't know why he felt like he should hear every word of this, but his body leant toward their conversation anyway.

Dean continued, to the point. "What's your name?"

gSara," she answered automatically, flashing him a smirk, one that made Sam's heart hurt. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he tried to label why this girl seemed so familiar. He bounced out of it when she asked, "What's yours?"

gDean. Dean Winchester," Dean said smoothly. Sam watched his brother's confidence with respect.

The girl threw back her head and laughed; Dean smiled, but looked confused. Sam knew he looked confused himself. Why was the girl laughing?

As if answering his question, she leant forward and he had to seriously strain in order to hear her say, "You're getting sloppy, Dean. I'm sure Papa wouldn't like that." Sam found his eyes drawn upward to look at this girl, and he saw Dean's surprised expression out of the corner of his eye. The girl's eyes flashed over to him for a moment, a sly smile slipping onto her face as she turned back to Dean. "I usually go for the bookie brothers anyway."

She picked up her bag, clutching her journal to her chest as she breezed past Dean and exited as close as possible to Sam. She winked at him, and that's when Sam knew. He stood up quickly, knocking over his chair as he ran out the door behind the blonde haired beauty. He took the same exit and whirled around, looking for her, searching for her.

But she was gone.


	2. 02

A nearly breathless Dean rushed out behind his younger brother, pulling out his gun once the darkness of the night shadowed his body. He looked around warily, his expression turning into one of confusion as he slowly lowered his arm back down to his side, sliding his gun back into the waistband of his pants. He gave his brother a curious look and asked, "What... ?"

Sam wasn't about to claim he had seen some girl from his past- a past love, to be specific. Sure, Dean had seen her, too, but if Sam claimed she was one person only on a whim, Dean would surely disbelieve him..

So, he shook his head and muttered, "Never mind. Let's get back to researching so we can figure out what this thing is, kill it, and give closure, whether negative or positive, to this family."

Dean nodded, but kept a judging eye on Sam as they entered back into the bar, Sam surfing the Web on his laptop and Dean shuffling through their father's journal, scanning the pages for any key words. Due to the fact that the journal was the equivalent of the Monster Encyclopedia, the words "eats human flesh", "preys on campers", and "lives in forests" seemed to occur only too often.

Although Sam was writing down leads and scratching them out when something contradicted it, the larger portion of his brain was still focused on that girl. He knew he could talk to Dean about it, and validate what he heard... but what Sam wanted to know was, if it was her, why did she walk away from him, leaving him alone again?

"I'm stumped," Dean finally admitted, adding a frustrated sigh to the end of his sentence. Sam shrugged as if he was stumped, too; truth be told, he wasn't exactly working at his full capacity either. Dean pulled a hand through his hair and said, "I do believe we need to do some field work."

"So, go to the Lost Creek Trail Ranger Station? That's where the guys went missing," Sam said. Dean nodded, losing the journal and sliding it into the inner pocket of his jacket.

"I believe that's a good a start as any, baby bro. See, you were made for this," Dean said, clapping his hand on Sam's back. Sam flinched and Dean narrowed his eyes curiously. "What's wrong with you, Jumper?"

"Nothing, I'm just ready to find this monster and kill it so we can continue searching for Dad," Sam said quickly enough. It wasn't necessarily a lie, but it wasn't the reason he was so jumpy. He figured Dean would turn on his brother telepathy at one moment or another and realize what he was really thinking about.

Dean shared all the things he had found in his quick scan of their father's journals, re-telling some of their father's and their own greatest hits. Sam found himself smiling and finally forgetting about the girl, allowing for his brainwaves to focus at the more important matter at hand. He finally managed to get focused on his job, especially with Dean's stories as a reminder of just how good they were at what they did.

They finally arrived at the ranger station and walked in, first asking the Ranger a few simple questions with no real introduction. He asked them if they were friends of Haley Collins'; Sam recognized the name from the article he had read about the initial attacks. She was the sister of one of the missing men. So, in order to maintain cover, Sam said they were. Dean had no choice but to go along with it.

The Ranger told him there was no more they could do, and that he had said the same thing to Haley. Sam and Dean thanked him, then opened up a handbook and found the Collins residence, driving there immediately. When they met Haley, they claimed they were part of the investigation, and she explained everything she knew: her brother had gone camping with some friends, and she had gotten a video from him supposedly moments before he disappeared. After going through it a few times, Dean spotted a fast moving shadow in the background, and he narrowed it down to one thing.

"A Wendigo," Dean told his younger brother the moment they got back from Haley's house, planning to go out the next day with Haley and her younger brother on a hunt for their brother, lead by a forest guide. Dean informed his brother that Wendigos were once human, turned immortal once they fed on human flesh; the only way they could be killed was with fire. So when they packed their backpacks for the next day, they packed plenty of matches, lighters, and a flare gun for each of them.

They traveled out to the woods the next day with Haley, her younger brother, Ben, and their guide, Roy. After the Wendigo lured Roy out to the forest, they were able to follow his trail until they found his dead body and the Wendigo captured Dean and Haley. Dean, who had been munching on peanut M & M's at the time of his abduction, had led a trail of them like Hansel and Gretel had with their bread crumbs. Ben and Sam were able to follow the trail to a dilapadated cave where the Wendigo was nowhere to be found, but Haley, Dean, and Tommy were being hung from the ceiling.

Sam and Ben cut the three of them down. Haley and Dean were a bit bruised and scratched, but Tommy was limp and dizzy. They started to exit when they heard the distressed roar of the Wendigo echo throughout the cave; Sam and Dean shared an uneasy look while Sam went around, flare gun ready, to apprehend the Wendigo if he tried to intercept them before they exited.

"You need to go," Dean said to Haley and Ben. They both kind of stared incomprehensibly at him before he waved them and said, "Your brother needs medical attention. My brother and I can handle this monster. Sam's waiting for you further up, just to make sure the Wendigo doesn't have a secret passage way."

Haley looked deep into Dean's eyes and thanked him; he secretly wished she would kiss him as a sign of her thanks, but he blamed her lack of movement on her gimp brother she was currently supporting. The three siblings hobbled down the hallway as Sam reappeared at the doorway, waiting patiently for them to get to him.

Sure enough, the Wendigo practically flew out of a side entrance, but somehow wasn't strong enough to take all three of the siblings. Dean and Sam both rushed at it, but weren't able to get a clear shot due to the Wendigo's close proximity to the siblings. Sam was able to pull them out and subdue the Wendigo with a gun shot; the flare was still too risky. Sam joined Dean as the Collins ran out the door, not looking back. Dean rolled his eyes at their ungratefulness and selfishness.

Dean lifted his arm to shoot the Wendigo, but the Wendigo kicked the flare gun out of his hand. Sam tried to shoot, but the trigger was jammed. Dean kept trying to shoot the Wendigo with regular bullets, but it was only slowing it down and pissing it off. Dean yelled, "Sammy, any other great ideas?"

Before Sam had a chance to respond, a shot rang out. Sam flinched and Dean dove for cover. The Wendigo burst into flames as the flare flew into its chest, its last squeal ringing through the air. When it suddenly disintegrated, Sam whirled around to meet and thank his savior.

He was met with a brilliant smile, which lit up the girl's face in the darkness. He squinted before the girl put her hands on her hips, speaking in her Kansas accent, a voice that Sam would know anywhere.

She asked, "Did you forget me again already, Sammy?"


	3. 03

Sam just stared at her. Dean crawled out from his hiding spot and looked between the two curiously, standing up and brushing himself off before he asked, "What is going on... ?"

"Leia," Sam whispered. Leia's smile hadn't fallen, but Dean's jaw had.

"Leia? As in Luke-and-Leia from Kansas?" Dean asked. Leia's mouth struggled with the decision of falling or remaining in a smile. Her twin brother, Luke, had been killed about ten years earlier, but the thought of her parents actually naming her and her brother after Star Wars characters was comical. "Wow, you look... wow. How's Luke doing?"

"You didn't tell him?" Leia asked Sam, only slightly surprised. Dean turned to his younger brother, then back to the beautiful girl in front of him who resembled the once beautiful twelve-year-old girl who lived on their old street in Lawrence, Kansas, their only real home. He had so many questions, and Leia's seemed like a good first one to ask.

"No, I didn't. Dean and I weren't exactly on talking terms when we dated," Sam said slowly, carefully. Dean's eyebrows shot up; he knew that Sam had always been excited to go to Lawrence to see Leia, who had been one of his best friends since birth, but he didn't know that he liked her like that. Sam turned to his older brother and said, "We dated when I started going to Stanford my freshman year."

"Just for a little bit, nothing too committal," Leia said dismissively, even giving the subject a little of a hand wave. Dean caught Sam giving Leia the same look he used to give Jess the one time Dean saw it- the look of love, as his father would call it.

Leia gained their attention again by saying, "So, are you guys going to treat me to some food since I just totally saved your asses?"

"Let's just get out of here first. We'll stop at the first motel we see, then I'll go out and get us some food," Dean said quickly, practically patting himself on the back for coming up with a situation where Sam and Leia would be alone together. He wanted his brother to get over Jess already, and Leia seemed to be the perfect girl to use to do that.

"Sounds perfect to me. I would just kill for a burger," Leia moaned, walking out first. Dean looked at Sam with raised eyebrows and motioned for him to fuck her before he did. Sam rolled his eyes and walked up beside Leia, walking strangely close to her. Dean walked on the other side of her, but at a safer distance.

They got back to the car and after Dean found out that Leia loved Def Leppard, he was having to remind himself every five milliseconds that she was Sam's girl and always had been. He tried to imagine her as the naive twelve year old girl she was in Lawrence when he came back to visit at the age of sixteen. That calmed him down fast enough.

They got to the motel and checked in, and Dean took their orders as he shot out to nearest burger place. There were no sheets on their bed yet, only the sketchy mattress pads, so Leia laid out on the ground and stretched her back out. Sam smiled and sat down next to her as she sat back up, returning the smile. He suddenly lost his and asked, "How did you become a hunter?"

The question took Leia off guard, and Sam could tell that. He wanted to sew his mouth up and take those words back, and when he went to go apologize, Leia laughed and shook her head, pressing her fingertips into his thigh like she always used to do. The simple movement brought goosebumps to Sam's skin.

"It's okay, Sam. I'd wonder, too, if the positions were reversed," Leia said, fixing herself. Sam waited patiently before she began.

"I remember when we were younger, you were always telling me about these demons and monsters that you'd hunt whenever you were away from home," she admitted, pulling at the carpet as she went into a sort of trance. A small smile crossed over her face as she shook her head, tucking back the blonde hairs that fell out of place. "I always thought they were horror stories to scare me, but then I started noticing things, things that shouldn't have been happening."

Her eyes met Sam's, and she turned steely for a moment, putting up those walls Sam knew she had built after the still unmentioned tragic event that had changed her. As if reading his mind, Leia got straight to the point.

"It was after Luke died; I knew something was wrong. His body disappeared, but I saw him the night that he disappeared. He was standing in the kitchen, talking to something and calling it 'master.' I thought he was sleep walking, until I saw a yellow glow in the dark. I heard a hissing and I ran up to my room, thinking I was having a nightmare. When I woke up the next morning, Luke was gone, and I knew it wasn't a dream and that your monster tales were true," Leia whispered. She had shared this story with nobody else before, mainly because she would have probably been admitted to an asylum if she had.

Sam tilted his head and gave her a curious look. "Why didn't you tell me at Stanford?"

"By then, I had started some hunting on my own. I mentioned the name 'Winchester,' and got loads of information about your family- mostly Dean and your dad, but then I caught wind of you. A pre-law major at Stanford, you had defied your father and refused to live in his footsteps. I had to see you, but I knew if I said the word 'monster' once, you'd leave. I thought I could ease you into it, but then I saw how happy you were in your normal life, and I didn't want to disrupt that," Leia said honestly. She had been keeping this secrets to herself for long; why not be upfront and honest about everything that had happened?

Sam reached out and touched her knee, gaining her attention. As he looked into her blue eyes, he promised himself to choose his words carefully as he said, "It would've been nice to have my best friend there."

Leia smiled at him, but inside, she was devastated. She had thought that maybe, just maybe, she could have rekindled that candle with Sam that she had blown out years ago when she left him at Stanford for better or for worse. She sighed inwardly and chastised herself; it was only her fault. She was lucky he was still so happy to see her.

"Yeah, it would've been nice to have a partner on the road," Leia admitted, skipping around naming him specifically in case she let something slip that shouldn't leave her mouth. She looked up at him and shrugged, giving him a tired smile. "You had your life, and I had mine. When we both left Lawrence, that's what changed."

"Do your parents... do they know about you being a hunter?" Sam asked. Leia laughed and he smiled.

"Yes, Sammy, I told my parents that I hunt monsters. They're ecstatic," she said, every word dripping with sarcasm. "No, they're back in Lawrence, thinking I'm living in an obscure town in Maine that doesn't have a mail service. I wasn't lucky enough to have a parent that's in the business and understands what I'm going through. By the way, how is Johnny Winchester?"

Sam lost his smile and Leia covered her mouth, saying, "Oh, God, he isn't... ?"

"No, no! He's alive," Sam said as Leia blew out a big breath, relaxing before Sam added, "we think."

Leia tensed. "What do you mean, "we think"?"

"Well the whole entire reason I started hunting again, and only very recently, is because we're going hunting for our dad. He went out on a trip without Dean and hasn't been back in about a month, so Dean came to me and asked for help. I know my dad and I never really got along well, but still... he's my dad," Sam said softly. Leia reached across and hugged Sam tightly, and he hugged her back, glad to have the physical contact he had been craving ever since Jess had died.

"We'll find him, Sammy," Leia promised, determination in his voice. If there's one thing Sam knew about Leia, it was that when she set her mind to something, she did it, full throttle.

They separated just as Dean came back in, bearing food. When Sam and Leia sat down at the table, Dean used his sixth sense to tell that nothing romantic had really happened between the two of them. All throughout the dinner, as the three of them joked and caught up, Dean was concocting a plan to keep Leia there for a bit longer. When the subject of the hunt for their dad came up, Dean hit his hands on the table as the plan came to him. Sam and Leia both gave him a confused look.

"Leia, you should come with us," Dean said. Sam and Leia both looked surprised by the invitation. When Leia looked at Sam, he cleared his throat awkwardly before nodding.

"Yeah, it'd be nice to have someone smarter than me on the trip," Sam said. Dean scoffed offensively as Leia chuckled, leaning back into her chair.

"Well, it has been getting a bit lonesome lately... I don't see why it'd be a bad idea," Leia said, smiling at the two brothers. "Guess I'm here to stay."

Once again, Dean had the urge to pat himself on the back, especially when he saw Sam's first genuine smile cross over his face since Jess' death.

Things might have been turning up, after all.


	4. 04

That night, after Dean had rented a third bed without Leia knowing, Sam woke up in the middle of his deep sleep due to another disturbing dream in which he saw the yellow eyes he had seen everywhere recently. He didn't know whose they were or what they wanted from him, but they were shining with pure malice, that much, he was sure of.

He sat up and went to get off his bed to get some water, but he saw that Leia's bed was mysteriously empty. He got up and walked outside, looking to the left of the door and finding her on her laptop, a notebook almost as jam-packed with information as Sam's father was. The moment the door had opened, she looked up at him and smiled, taking the earphones out of her ears.

"Hi, Sam," she said nonchalantly. Sam just looked at her with a quirked eyebrow and she shrugged, looking back at her computer screen. "I have pretty intense insomnia. I hardly ever get tired."

"I mean, I'm not the one with a medical degree, but I'm pretty sure that's not normal," Sam said, walking to the other side of her and picking up her notebook. He took a seat next to her so their hips brushed against each other, then opened her notebook, meeting her eyes before he began reading. "May I?"

"Sure, it's not like I have 'Mrs. Sam Winchester' written on every page in hearts," Leia said, scrolling down the computer screen as Sam chuckled. He began scanning the pages, looking at her neat, small handwriting scrawled around artistic and clean drawings of the scariest monsters and the weapons that could kill them. He whistled in appreciation.

"This is impressive, especially considering you've only been hunting for a few years," Sam said, watching a small smile cross over Leia's face at the compliment. Sam put down the notebook and leant over to look at Leia's screen. "So, what are you looking at?"

"Looking for a job," she responded, not moving her eyes from the screen. Sam rose an eyebrow. Leia must've seen his movement, because she responded, "I know we just had a job, but that's how I got so much practice in- I didn't wait. With insomnia every night, you have twice as much time to hunt three times the monsters everybody else does."

"Three times?" Sam asked teasingly. Leia scoffed, looking at him with a smirk.

"Of course. Let's be honest- I'm way better than everybody else at everything else," Leia said, rolling her eyes. Sam and she smiled at each other before something beeped on her screen, gaining both of their attentions. The police scanner she had been subscribed to had picked up a call for a DUI, but nothing that was in their territory. Leia groaned and threw back her head, complaining, "I've been at this for hours, and nothing worth searching into has come up. I'm about to take my laptop and chuck it across this town."

"Well, don't do that. You have a nice laptop," Sam said, earning a laugh. He stood up and said, "Let's go out on the town, see what we can find. It's rare that we have free time."

"I wouldn't necessarily call this free time for you, Sam. You need to get some sleep," Leia said motherly, getting up as she gave Sam the condescending look she had been giving him since the day she was born. He scoffed and began to walk away. "Samuel Winchester! Get back here!"

He turned, but didn't return to where Leia was waiting for him. He took his hands out of the pockets of his leather jacket and yelled, "Come on, Leia! I'm not tired, and you might as well enjoy your insomnia while you can!"

Leia and Sam stared at each other for a few moments, before Leia sighed and submitted to his wishes, smiling and shaking her head as she returned to the room and changed her clothes quickly, saying a silent prayer the whole way through that Dean didn't wake up. Not only did she not want to be only partially clothed in front of him, but he would kill both Leia and Sam if he found out they weren't sleeping.

Leia ran back out and Sam smiled so easily at the mere appearance of her flawless beauty, something that would never change, even if his romantic feelings for her went away. Leia slipped her hand through the crook in Sam's elbow as they talked and laughed, walking through the beautiful night breeze to reach the downtown scene. Sam remembered how nothing made Leia happier than dancing, so he pulled her inside of a club. The smile on her face didn't leave the whole night.

Sam led her to the dance floor, and, automatically, they assumed the position they had when they had been dating. It came all too natural for them to be in this situation, and it took all of Sam's willpower not to lean down and kiss her neck, or her lips. He just kept whispering jokes about the people around them in her ear, earning laughter as they remained close, their bodies pressed against each other.

After both of them were nearly drenched in sweat, they exited the club and started back to the hotel. Leia had her hand in the crook of Sam's elbow again, and they both could not keep the smiles off of their faces. As they talked about the people back in the club, Sam made a reference to one of his old Stanford friends that Leia had known. Leia kind of lost her fun attitude, and Sam looked at her curiously, asking, "Is something wrong?"

"I don't know if it's wrong to be asking you, but who's Jess? I heard you and Dean talking about her earlier, and Dean saying that he understood how you felt upset after losing her," Leia said slowly, carefully. Sam shut his eyes for a few moment, breathing out from his nose. He knew that Leia would eventually have to find out about Jess, especially if she was about to go on tour with them, but it was still a sore subject, even if it was Leia or Dean he was talking to about it.

Sam somehow found the strength to tell Leia about how Jess had been his girlfriend that he had loved so much and who had been killed by the same thing that had killed his mother. Leia was very quiet afterward, waiting for him to finish. When he did, Leia turned to him and just hugged him tightly. Words weren't required; condolences couldn't really be given. Leia just held Sam, and that's all he wanted.

They walked the rest of the way home as Leia told him the story about what she had hunted, never once making a reference to Stanford in fear of bringing up more ideas associated with Jess. They made it back to the hotel in what seemed like no time, and Leia told Sam to take a shower so he didn't reek in the morning and Dean would have no idea of what went down. Sam laughed and went into the bathroom as she asked him to, and when he came out, Leia was silently sleeping on his bed, cuddling with his leather jacket.

Sam knelt down beside her head, brushing back her hair, but she didn't budge. He wondered the last time she had actually been asleep was. By how far out she was, he assumed it had been a long time. He just stared at her, thinking how he could have ever moved on to Jess from this, from these feelings he had always had for Leia. He knew that this time, he would make her his, and he wouldn't let her go worth anything.

With this thought, he curled up on her bed, smelling her distinct perfume on her pillow.

He fell asleep with a smile on his face.


	5. 05

When Sam woke up in the morning, Dean was surprisingly already up. As Sam shifted on the bed, he gained Dean's attention. Dean responded to his wake by commenting, "Morning, sleepyhead. What'd you do last night?"

"Nothing," Sam lied. Dean quirked an eyebrow in suspicion before Leia shifted on her bed, but didn't wake. Dean caught Sam looking at her the same way he looked at every girl he had ever been interested in. He turned back to his younger brother and rose an eyebrow in questioning. Sam asked, "What?"

"Feelings for Sleeping Beauty, Prince Philip?" Dean asked. Sam scoffed and stood up from the bed.

"That's sad, man. I don't even know the name of the princes," Sam said, trying to get the subject off of Leia in fear that she would wake up in the midst of their conversation. Sam started to walk out the door and asked, "I'm going to Dunkin' Donuts, you want anything?"

"Shouldn't you wait until your beau wakes up to ask her?" Dean asked, now teasing.

"I already know what she wants," Sam said impatiently, not in the mood to play with his brother's childishness. "Do you want anything, or no?"

At that moment, Leia woke up. Dean and Sam both kind of watched her as she woke up, so when she sat up on the edge of the bed, she saw both Winchester brothers staring at her. She gave them both confused looks and said, "Good morning to you two as well."

"Actually, it's almost the afternoon, but why be technical?" Dean said, pointing to the clock. Sam and Leia both looked over and saw that it was 12:47, and Leia let out a heavy breath. "The day's already half done, and we're not even sure what our job is yet."

Leia's stomach growled, and she winced. "Let me go get some food, and then we'll come back here and talk. I'm so sorry, Dean, I never sleep in this late... actually, I usually never sleep. I don't know why..."

Leia looked at Sam, then her eyes went quickly back to Dean. Sam looked confused, and Dean adopted his confused look. Leia pulled both of their attention back to the matter at hand and asked, "What do you guys want to eat? I'll go pick it up real quick."

"Uh-uh, you are not driving my Impala. I barely allow Sam to drive it," Dean said, quickly snatching his keys off the table as if he thought that Leia was going to steal them and sneak off with his car. He stood up and sighed, saying, "I'll go get the food. You and Sam stay here and see if you can find us a job. I don't care where, I just want to be doing something."

Dean stomped out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Leia whistled and took a seat behind a laptop, commenting, "Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."

"Yeah, you might want to get used to it," Sam responded, pulling a hand through his hair before taking a seat beside Leia. He mindlessly put his arm on the back of her chair, but she didn't flinch either. He pulled his chair closer to her and began looking at her computer screen, asking, "Anything yet?"

"No. Go get the newspaper, check that. If we can't find anything then, we start calling people, and we start driving and checking out towns ourselves," Leia said, still scanning the screen. Sam nodded and walked outside to grab the newspaper, retaking his seat as he scanned through it in silence. Something was still nagging at him in the back of his mind, however, and he put down his newspaper in annoyance. Leia looked over at him and asked innocently, "Is something wrong?"

"What was that look about that you gave me earlier, after you told Dean that you didn't know why you were able to sleep last night?" Sam asked her suddenly, obviously catching her off-guard. She cleared her throat and cracked her fingers, then looked back at Sam with new-found confidence.

"To be honest, I don't really know why, but I had insomnia ever since that night that Luke disappeared. That's why I was able to get through a medical degree in such a small amount of time- I had more time to study, more time to focus, and all that nonsense. But when I came to Stanford and saw you again... I slept like a baby every night." Leia looked curiously at him now, her voice softer than normal. Sam saw the wonder in her eyes at the correlation between her sleep and being with Sam. "I don't know what it is about you, Sammy Winchester, but you just seem to be good for me."

Sam went to respond, but the door opened and Dean re-entered with food. Leia jumped up to help him, then laid out the spread from KFC as they picked and chose what type of Southern food they wanted. Leia joked with Dean as he made sexual noises when he ate; Sam laughed, but his mind was still whirling over what Leia had said and what had apparently meant to her to be nothing.

After they ate, Dean said he wanted to hit the road. They packed up their bags and threw them in the Impala, when Sam finally realized Leia's car was still there. When he asked her about it, she just said, "Eh, it's stolen anyway. What do I care about a shitty ass d15b1 when I bet Dean has something far more advanced under the hood of this beautiful Impala?"

Dean's jaw had dropped at Leia's knowledge about cars. He asked, "Seriously. Why have we never dated?"

"Because you are sorely out of my league, hon," Leia teased, walking away from the boys. Dean turned to his younger brother and grabbed his arms.

"Please, man. Get your move on, for me, if anything," Dean almost groaned. Sam laughed and pulled out of his brother's grip, following Leia to the car and throwing his bags and Dean's into the trunk, closing it. Leia crawled into the backseat as Sam handed her laptop and notebook back to her and she got comfortable, stretching her legs out on the back seat. Sam watched jealously and Leia laughed at his facial expression.

"You could've had this seat all to yourself, Sammy. Don't complain," Leia said as Sam got into the car and began driving. As Dean and Sam told some of their hunting stories, Leia continued her research on her computer and finally pulled up a drowning in Wisconsin where the body could not be found. They figured it was a better chance than anything else they had found, so they began heading to Lake Mantioc, Wisconsin to check it out.

When they arrived, Sam and Dean were introduced to the sheriff as federal wildlife officers, and Leia was their trainee, much to her chagrin. They asked him the routine questions about the girl, an eighteen-year-old girl named Sophie Carlton, but she seemed clean. Leia could tell they were winding up, so she asked, "What's your relationship to the deceased?"

The sheriff looked at her in confusion and Dean gave her an incredulous, 'you're obvious' look. The sheriff asked slowly, "Excuse me?"

"We just like to cover all our bases," Leia said, not even looking at Dean out of the corner of her eye. The sheriff cleared his throat and shuffled uncomfortably, so Dean turned back around, as he was now interested. The sheriff looked almost... guilty.

"Her father, Bill, is my best friend. He's very upset about losing his daughter. His wife died a few years back, you see, and he's never really been the same since. Sophie and Will, his son, have kind of kept him afloat... mostly Sophie has kept him happy, though. Without her, I don't know how long Will can keep him alive," the sheriff admitted.

"Thank you, that's all we need for now. We'll be in touch," Leia said, beginning to walk out.

She heard the sheriff chuckle and comment to Dean and Sam, "You sure have your work cut out of you, don't you?"

"You have no idea," Dean said with a tint of annoyance as he followed Sam and Leia out the door. He saw that Leia, however, was preoccupied as she squatted in front of a boy sitting by himself in a chair. She asked him a few questions, but he remained silent.

The sheriff rushed out and snatched up the boy, resting him on his hip. He smiled at us and said, "This is my grandson, Lucas. Hey, Luke, these nice people are going to find Sophie. What do you think about that?"

Lucas stared at him before struggling out of his arms and scampering into a back office. The sheriff sighed as Leia gave him a questioning look. He admitted, "He hasn't talked since he saw his father die in the same lake. They were swimming together and his dad got pulled under. He was Bill's godson, and that was the first blow after Bill's wife's death that really started to push him downhill."

"His godson?" Leia asked with a quirked eyebrow. The sheriff looked at her suspiciously.

"Yes. Now, if you excuse me, I have some other things to attend to," the sheriff said slowly, retreating back to his office. Sam, Dean, and Leia left, and Dean whirled around to face Leia.

"What the hell was that, Leia? Now the sheriff is all wary of us," Dean said. Leia rolled her eyes.

"It's the connection, Dean. All vics were related, somehow, to Bill Carlton," Leia said as the three of them began walking back to the motel nearby. They crossed by a park and saw the Lucas boy drawing vehemently at a table. Leia brightened and said, "He's connected. I'll go talk to him."

"He's like five, Leia. And antisocial. If anyone knows that life, it's me. I'll go talk to him," Dean said. Leia shot a look to Sam for back-up, but he raised his hands in a surrendering motion and backed away from the two of them. Leia sighed and waved Dean on, and waited only a few moments before Dean returned and handed a drawing to Leia.

"Kid might be a mute. His MILF of a mom, however, couldn't stop talking about how surprised she was that her usually withdrawn son had given me the drawing. I gave him a heartfelt talk about how I knew what he was going through, and he gave me a picture of a house," Dean said, sighing. "I don't know what this means."

"I probably could've gotten more from him," Leia said stubbornly. Sam decided to intervene.

"Alright, let's just get home and get some sleep before someone hurts somebody else, alright?" Sam asked. Leia nodded as they continued their journey to the motel, all three of them falling fast asleep.

The next morning, Leia woke up and found a note on the fridge from Sam.

_Will Carlton, Bill Carlton's son, died last night. Drowned... in his sink. Out to investigate. Feed yourself. -Sam_

Leia smiled at the note, remembering the days when Sam would leave one of their dorms early for class and would finish off his notes with 'Feed yourself', as if that was an issue. Leia rolled out and grabbed some lunch, then received a call on her phone from Sam only for him to give her an earful about how the house in Lucas' picture had been the Carltons' house. They had gone to speak to Lucas, and he gave Dean another picture- this time, of a landscape with a white church and a red bike. Dean recognized the landscape, so they drove to the town and asked a woman in a house if they knew the Carltons. She said that Bill had been one of her son's best friends before he went missing.

"So, we're assuming a young Bill had something to do with this?" Leia asked as she ate her hamburger.

"And now, little Peter's ghost is going after Bill's loved one," Sam finished off. "Why don't you take a day off, Lei? We're already in that groove kind of thing, and we're headed to Bill's house to see what he knows."

"I could go for some more sleep," Leia admitted, yawning as she said so. "Call me when you find something."

"I will. Sweet dreams," Sam said before hanging up the phone. Leia's skin covered with goosebumps as she smiled to herself and tucked in under the sheets, falling into a deep sleep.

When she awoke again, it was nearly 8AM the next day and her phone was blaring. As the missed call disappeared, she peeked at her screen and saw she had 17 missed calls from Sam, and 5 from Dean. She quickly picked up her phone and called Sam back, asking the moment he picked up the phone, "What's wrong?"

"I thought you were dead, for one thing!" Sam roared, angry. Leia clutched her head.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just fell asleep so soundly. You don't know how long I haven't slept. I guess my body's trying to make up for lost time. Now, tell me, what did your excellent sleuthing skills find?" Leia said, trying to play the flattery card. Sam sighed and submitted to her.

"Well, you certainly missed all the fun. We watched Bill Carlton get pulled under the water at the lake, then almost lost Andrea, too. Found out her dad, the sheriff, also helped with Peter's murder, which was an accident, but Bill and Jake just let Peter's body go into the lake and that's why he's mad. Anyway, I saved Andrea, and Lucas took us to the lake. Peter grabbed him, but Jake sacrificed himself and Dean got Lucas out. Did I miss anything, Dean?" Sam asked, sounding a bit fed up. Leia bit her lip.

"I am so sorry, Sammy. I just... never mind. There's no excuse for what I did," Leia said softly.

"Hey," Sam said, suddenly developing a softer tone with her, "it's okay. I understand. We'll be home soon, okay? Pack up our stuff if you can, we're moving on out. We already have another hit."

"Alright, bye," Leia said, hanging up the phone. She sighed and began packing up her stuff, then the brothers'. The boys finally entered, looking tired, and Leia asked Dean, "You still don't want me to drive, right?"

"Right," Dean said, sighing. "I'm going to go use the bathroom before we head out."

Leia nodded as he entered the bathroom, shutting the door and leaving Sam and Leia alone. Leia looked over at Sam and said, "Look, I'm sorry..."

Sam just took a few steps toward her and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly. He pulled away from her and held her at a distance, meeting her eyes as he said, "Just don't do it again, alright? And this next hit, you're coming with us. We're not leaving you behind again."

"Sounds like a plan," Leia said, nodding and smiling. Sam hugged her again, smiling as his chin dug into the top of her head.

"I'm glad you're with us now, Leia. I'm sorry if it seemed otherwise," Sam said. Leia hugged him tighter.

"I'm glad I'm here, too, Sam."


	6. 06

When Dean exited the bathroom, he saw Leia typing away on the computer, Sam nowhere in sight. He looked around before Leia answered, not looking up from her computer, "Sam went out to get some breakfast. I am currently trying to find us a job."

"Well, thank you for the 411," Dean said sarcastically, heading to the kitchen and grabbing a beer out of the fridge. Leia turned to smirk at him.

"You know you're curious. And really? Beer first thing in the morning?" When Dean gave her a judgmental look that told her that he didn't appreciate her criticism, she added, "I don't like to start off so heavy. And with your hunting abilities, I wouldn't want to start off inhibited either."

Dean scoffed. "Oh, please. Like you have anything on me."

Leia raised one eyebrow. "Is that a bet, Dean Winchester?"

"You bet. Next job we have will determine who the better hunter is," Dean said as a phone began ringing. He took another swig of his beer, giving a contempt look to Leia. She didn't move, and the phone began ringing. His eyebrows furrowed as he asked, "Aren't you going to get that?"

Leia looked confused as she slowly responded, "That's not mine."

Dean rushed to his hunting bag that was by the door, shuffling through the pockets before he pulled out an older cell phone. It stopped ringing before he had a chance to answer it, and he cussed, throwing it back down onto the bag, grabbing his beer and then joining Leia at the table. She looked at him curiously, questioning who's phone it was, and Dean answered, "It was one of my dad's. But I don't think he would've called his own phone."

Soon enough, Dean's phone began ringing. He shot out of his seat with such surprising speed that Leia gasped a little bit at his sudden movement. He answered the phone eagerly, asking, "Hello? Oh, yes, this is Dean. Oh, you've worked with my dad before? Yeah, we were looking for a job. We'll be up there as soon as possible. Thanks."

Dean hung up the phone, walking back to the table and taking another swig of his drink. Leia was the one to ask, "So, where are we headed?"

"Catasauqua," Dean said.

"Did your tongue just go numb or something?" Leia said sarcastically. Dean made a face at her, responding, "No. We're going to the Air Traffic Investigation enter in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. You know that plane that crashed like two days ago? This guy has a suspicion that something fishy was going on, because he picked up something on the black box. He wants us to come check it out."

"Seems worth it," Leia said, shrugging and shutting her laptop. The moment she got up, the door opened and Sam brought in coffee and bagels for the three of them. While Dean filled him in on their new job, Leia packed up the car. When everything was packed away, they began the long road trip to Pennsylvania.

When they arrived, Leia had to look up directions to the Air Traffic Investigation center on her laptop. It was down several winding roads, way away from the city and pretty much all other civilization. Dean called their contact, and when they arrived at the building, a skinny, older man was waiting outside for them. When they walked up, he shook their hands and said with a smile, "Hi, I'm Jerry Panowski. Your dad helped my wife and I with a poltergeist a few years back. I know about you, Dean and Sam, but who are you?"

"I'm Leia, a childhood friend of the boys'," Leia said, smiling and putting a hand out to Jerry. Sam smiled as he watched her, and Dean chuckled a little bit at his younger brother's expense. Jerry smiled as well, turning to look at Sam.

"From what I heard from John, you were once more than just a friend," Jerry teased. Leia looked a bit surprised, and Sam looked solemn. Although Dean thought the situation was humorous and enjoyable to watch, he had to remind himself that they were here on business.

"Speaking of our dad, you haven't heard from our dad recently, have you?" Dean asked carefully.

"No. Is everything okay?" Jerry asked worriedly.

"We think so, but we just haven't heard from him in a while," Dean emphasized, calming Jerry's fears. He rubbed his hands together and asked, "So, what do you have for us?"

As Jerry led them inside and back to his office, he told the tale of how the plane had crashed. He claimed that the plane had no issues, but that the seven survivors had all claimed that an open emergency exit door had led to cabin pressure dropping and the fate of the plane. Nobody knew how the door had opened, but one survivor had admitted himself to the asylum after the incident and was denied investigation. Leia sorted that information into the file labeled 'think about later'.

After Jerry played back the pilot's black box, during which a demented voice claimed there would be "No survivors", Leia asked for the name of the survivors, including the one in the asylum. As they left, Leia was too busy tracking them down to bid farewell to Jerry. When they got back to the car, Leia had already pinpointed the survivor who had committed himself, and she convinced the guys to go check out his story first.

When they arrived, a normal looking man was sent out to meet them, introduced as the survivor they were looking for. He claimed that the reason the plane had failed is because a man with coal black eyes had opened the emergency door in the back of the plane. When Leia turned to look at Dean, he nodded, saying he believed the guy. He wasn't crazy; he just thought he was.

Leia thanked him as they headed off to Amanda's house, but decided to split up to get more ground covered. Whatever demon had tried to kill all the people on the plane was still on the loose, and was no doubt going to try to kill the rest of them. Dean headed off to the Air Traffic Investigation center to investigate the pieces of the plane saved from the crash while Sam went with Leia to question Amanda, one of the flight attendants.

With Leia and Sam, Amanda claimed that nothing weird had happened during the flight. She said there was an adamant, sort of rude passenger, whose characterization matched the demon-possessed passenger the guy before her had described, but she didn't think he had done anything to harm the plane. Obviously, the admitted guy was the only one of the survivors to accept what he saw, or he was the only one to see it at all.

They also found out that the plane crash hadn't made Amanda quit her job. She had a flight out later that day- another piece of information Leia filed away in her brain. When Sam got a text from Dean, they thanked Amanda for her time and went out.

"It seems Chuck, the pilot of the plane, just crashed in a small plane accident in the middle of nowhere. Dean found sulfur in the plane, and is going to the crash to investigate. He did find another connection, though- both planes crashed 40 minutes into their flight, and 40 is the Devil's number," Sam said.

"I know that, Sammy. What do you think I am, an amateur?" Leia teased, shoving into him a bit with her hip and giving him a smile.

"By your questioning tactics, no. You actually seem very professional. I almost believed myself for a second that you were really an official with ATC," Sam teased back. Leia laughed and Sam just watched her as they returned back to the car, meeting up with Dean at the new crash.

When they informed Dean that Amanda hadn't seen anything and planned on flying again, Dean announced that he knew their plan: they had to stop Amanda from flying. They drove quickly to the airport and Dean called Amanda from one of the payphones. He claimed that her sister was at the hospital, but Amanda revealed that she had just gotten off the phone with her and hung up. Dean sat there, not knowing what to do next. Leia laughed when he admitted he was at a lost for what to do next.

"You don't, Dean. You know exactly what we have to do next, and you just won't admit it," Leia said, standing up from the bench and going to the ticket desk. "Three on Flight 476, please."

"No. No, no, no," Dean said, running up and grabbing Leia by the arm. She turned to stare at him incredulously, looking to Sam, who pulled Dean away from her. He whimpered and Sam laughed at his expense as Leia came back, waving the tickets in the air.

Her smile was too excited as she announced, "Let's go kill our first demon together."

"On a plane?" Dean asked, wincing. "Really?"

"Okay, and you're still going to claim that you're the better hunter? You can't even look at a plane without pissing your pants a little bit," Leia teased. Sam chuckled at his elder brother's expense, who shot him a betrayed look. "Come on, baby Dean, let's get this over with."

They walked through security and boarded the plane, Dean whimpering the entire way as Sam and Leia laughed at him. Once they got on the plane, they looked at the eyes of all the passengers, but they didn't see anything unusual. As they took their seats- Sam closest to the window, Leia in the middle, and Dean on the end in case he needed to go throw up- Leia happened to look toward the cockpit. The co-pilot met her eyes, smiled, and his eyes shifted to a solid black.

She pretended to be confused, blinking as his eyes turned back to a regular color. When he walked into the cockpit, she was quick to say, "It's the co-pilot. We officially have a problem."

"Why didn't you warn us so we could see it, too?" Dean asked, his seatbelt already locked. He fixed it again, making sure it was extra tight, as if that would be the one thing that saved him if the plane could crash before they had the chance to stop it.

"He was staring at me. I didn't want to tip him off that we're here to stop him," Leia said as Amanda began to tell them the basic safety rules of the plane. After a few minutes plotting how they were going to get the demon, the plane took off and Dean's panic attack began.

They took up the first twenty minutes of the flight, sharing time between plotting and trying to convince Amanda that something was going on. After Amanda herself saw the black eyes, she finally admitted she would help them. As they crowded into the back room with the food and everything, Amanda called back the co-pilot to look at some mechanics. The moment he stepped inside, Sam and Dean jumped on top of him, holding him down and pouring Holy Water on him as he screamed, muffled by Sam's hands over his mouth. Leia opened to the page in John's journal that had the exorcism spell written on it, and began to speak in fluent and beautiful Latin. Sam's hands were thrown off of the demon's mouth as he told them, "I know what killed your mother... and Jessica."

Sam just stared at him, but Leia only suffered from a tiny hiccup in the spell. She rushed through the rest as the demon left the co-pilot's body. As they walked out of the back room, Amanda called the front and said that the co-pilot was deathly ill and they needed to land now. They safely landed at the airport they had left not thirty minutes ago, and after a thank you from Amanda, the boys and Leia were off.

Dean, embarrassed by the whole ordeal, offered to leave them at the ATC while he got them food and had some time to himself to gather his composure, or what was left. They sat outside in the nice Pennsylvanian weather as Leia asked Sam, "Would you have let him go?"

"Excuse me?" Sam asked, surprised by the question.

"I saw the hesitance in your face, Sammy. You were about to make a wager with that demon," Leia said, turning to Sam. She took his hands in hers and surprised him again with the touch. She looked deep into his eyes and said, "Jess and your mom want you to find out who their killer was, but not by killing yourself off first. You understand?"

Sam could only nod. Leia gave him a weak smile as Dean returned with their food and they dug in, Dean and Leia joking around like they always did. Sam was deep in thought, wondering if Leia was right.

Had he almost made a deal with the Devil?


	7. 07

After they bought the tickets and sat back down, Dean still grumbling about how he was going to regret this for the rest of his life and how they were all going to die on the plane, Sam and Leia plotted a plan. They'd have to simple just look around, sniffing for sulfur and staring into people's eyes, hoping that they would turn black so they could pin the demon and rid of him as quick as possible.

Leia tapped her finger on the cover of John's book, saying, "You should probably practice the spell."

Sam nodded and opened up the journal despite his brother's attempts to draw attention to himself so they could change the plan and not have to ride on the plane. Sam began reading, his days of law school coming in handy when reading the Latin. He struggled with a few words, and Leia helped him through. He turned to her and handed her the journal, saying, "You should do the spell. You were always better at speaking Latin than I was."

Leia shook her hand, trying to push it back to him. "Says the lawyer."

He plopped it into her lap, grinning back at her. "Says the medical major. How many diseases and procedures did you have to remember that were named using the ancient language?"

She groaned, but took the book. "I'd rather not count."

Sam laughed as she began reading in Latin, sounding much more fluent and natural than Sam could ever hope to sound like. The beauty of the language even shut Dean up, who stared at Leia, obviously both impressed and surprised with her skills. When she was done, she looked up and saw the two brothers staring at her, transfixed. She snapped her fingers and they both blinked.

"Are you guys focused?" She asked, trying to sound concerned, but there was a laugh in the back of her throat. Dean rolled his eyes.

"When am I ever not?" He asked.

"Whenever you're on a plane and your fear overtakes you. That, by the way, infinitely makes me a better hunter," Leia said, winking at him and shoving his arm playfully. He rolled his eyes.

"You've got a weakness, Lei. We all do. I'll find yours, and exploit it," he growled playfully, but still threateningly. If one thing about Dean hadn't change, Leia noticed, it was that he was a sore, stubborn loser.

"Boarding will begin now," the ticket-taker announced. Dean whimpered as if to prove Leia's point, and she laughed as she stood up, grabbed her carry on, and stuck the book in the open pocket. She went on first, followed by Dean, who was being pushed by Sam. Dean insisted on sitting in the aisle seat for a quick exit if anything went wrong, so Sam took the window seat and Leia sat between them, mostly due to the fact that she lost a secret game of Rock-Paper-Scissors that Sam and she had composed behind Dean's back to bet on who had to sit next to him and deal with him.

Dean lurched forward right as the flight attendants were checking the bags above their heads and said, "I think I'm going to be sick."

He rushed toward the lavatory, and Sam chuckled and looked down at his phone, looking through some text messages from God-knows-who. Leia watched Dean leave since she had nothing else better to do, but then caught eyes with the co-pilot who walked on board. She smiled politely, and he smiled maliciously, his eyes turning black before he turned and walked through the door to the cockpit.

"Sam, Sam, Sam," Leia said, slapping him on his sculpted chest multiple times. "It's the co-pilot."

"The... the what?" He asked, confused as to what she was referring to. She just stared at him until he caught on and said, "Oh! Wait, we can't get into the cockpit. Why didn't you tell me when you first noticed it?"

"He was staring at me. I didn't want to tip him off that we're here to stop him," Leia said as Amanda began to tell them the basic safety rules of the plane. After a few minutes plotting how they were going to get the demon, the plane took off and Dean's panic attack began.

They took up the first twenty minutes of the flight, sharing time between plotting and trying to convince Amanda that something was going on. After Amanda herself saw the black eyes, she finally admitted she would help them. As they crowded into the back room with the food and everything, Amanda called back the co-pilot to look at some mechanics. The moment he stepped inside, Sam and Dean jumped on top of him, holding him down and pouring Holy Water on him as he screamed, muffled by Sam's hands over his mouth. Leia opened to the page in John's journal that had the exorcism spell written on it, and began to speak in fluent and beautiful Latin. Sam's hands were thrown off of the demon's mouth as he told them, "I know what killed your mother... and Jessica."

Sam just stared at him, but Leia only suffered from a tiny hiccup in the spell. She rushed through the rest as the demon left the co-pilot's body. As they walked out of the back room, Amanda called the front and said that the co-pilot was deathly ill and they needed to land now. They safely landed at the airport they had left not thirty minutes ago, and after a thank you from Amanda, the boys and Leia were off.

Dean, embarrassed by the whole ordeal, offered to leave them at the ATC while he got them food and had some time to himself to gather his composure, or what was left. They sat outside in the nice Pennsylvanian weather as Leia asked Sam, "Would you have let him go?"

"Excuse me?" Sam asked, surprised by the question.

"I saw the hesitance in your face, Sammy. You were about to make a wager with that demon," Leia said, turning to Sam. She took his hands in hers and surprised him again with the touch. She looked deep into his eyes and said, "Jess and your mom want you to find out who their killer was, but not by killing yourself off first. You understand?"

Sam could only nod. Leia gave him a weak smile as Dean returned with their food and they dug in, Dean and Leia joking around like they always did. Sam was deep in thought, wondering if Leia was right.

Had he almost made a deal with the Devil?


	8. 08

Sam had way too much time to think about his moment of weakness on the plane. Although Leia and Dean were maintaining a consistent conversation in the front seats debating whether Def Leppard or Motely Crue was a better band, Sam still was thinking about Jess. He felt horrible, conflicting feelings, especially when he looked at Leia, usually catching her worried eye in the rearview mirror as she laughed at Dean but focused on Sam, who felt like he was losing grip on Jess as he grew closer to Leia, and he wasn't sure he wanted to lose Jess yet.

He somehow managed to fall asleep in the midst of his indecisiveness, but a nightmare about Jess woke him up again. This time, Leia couldn't act like something wasn't wrong. She turned around in the seat and bore her eyes into Sam's, demanding, "Okay, spill."

Sam decided to try out the innocent act. "Spill what?"

"What's your deal, Sammy? You've been on edge this whole entire trip, and I know that gasp better than anything. You just had a nightmare either foreseeing the future or backtracking to Jess' death." When Sam didn't respond, Leia focused more intensely on him. "Look me in the eyes and tell me I'm wrong."

Sam met her eyes evenly and lied through his teeth. "You're wrong."

Leia sighed and turned back around in her seat. She grumbled about not being able to work well with liars, but there was consistent buzzing in Sam that blocked out her complaints. He wanted to tell her about Jess, about the nightmares, but it was his problem and he would have to fix it by himself. If he tried to pull other people into it, it would just become more complicated and the risk of Leia being hurt was a worse idea than Sam's brain combusting.

"So," Dean said awkwardly, interrupting the angry silent treatment Leia was now giving Sam, "the case here is that some guy was killed in his home. His kids were home, and there is no wife. However, his youngest daughter is hysterical; she thinks that because she summoned Bloody Mary, that's why her dad is dead."

"What gives her reason to believe that?" Sam asked, although his eyes were focused on Leia, who was sulking out the window.

"The way he died. The guy's eyes liquified and his skull was full of blood," Dean said carefully, also taking his turn looking at Leia. "Just like the legend implies."

"But he's not the one who summoned Bloody Mary," Sam said.

"Obviously not, so that's why we're going in to check it out," Dean said as they pulled up to a house. When they walked inside and introduced themselves as FBI agent, the young girl, about middle school aged, just went off about how it was all her fault. Her older sister was on the phone and looked worried that she couldn't console her sister, so Leia bounced out of her stupor and stepped forward to comfort the girl.

"Sweetie, it's okay," she said, crouching down. Sam watched her smile easily at the girl, who calmed immediately underneath Leia's touch. He found himself smiling softly at Leia's motherly attitude toward the girl, and Dean shot a look toward him that judged his expression. He shrugged as Leia continued to coo to the girl, "It's not your fault. Bloody Mary is just a legend, nothing more. Your daddy died by natural causes, I assure you."

"Really?" The girl asked, still looking unsure.

"Honey, I wouldn't lie to you. I have nothing to gain from it," she teased. The girl smiled, but still looked worried. "Can you show us where you found your daddy?"

"Upstairs," the little girl pointed. As she guided them upstairs, she explained, "They already took him away and cleaned up the..."

They girl struggled to say 'blood', and Leia kissed the top of her head. "Go downstairs with your older sister, she'll help you out."

The little girl nodded and ran back downstairs as they began investigating the master bathroom. Leia picked up the mirror, and saw a blood stain going underneath the mirror. She struggled to find something on the back, and finally saw some residue she recognized as blacklight ink. As Sam watched in admiration of her quick sleuthing skills, she used the light to read the name on the back.

"Linda Shoemaker," she read slowly, thoughtfully. Before Sam could even come up with two theories about the name, Leia called, "Hey, Dean, how'd the mom die again?"

"Suicide. Pill overdose. Why?" Dean asked, coming over to inspect what Leia had found. His eyebrows shot up as he claimed, "Well, that's not sketchy at all."

"So, either he killed her, or this is where she died, are my guesses," Sam theorized. Leia nodded in agreement, giving him the task of finding out about any Mary's who had died in front of mirrors in preferably violent deaths dealing with bleeding of the eyes. Dean and her dropped him off at the library before they went to the coroner's office to look at the body. Sure enough, the autopsy did not lie- blood filled the skull and the eyeballs were completely gone. Leia had seen some creepy stuff in her hunting days, but nothing scared her more than a skull with empty sockets staring at her, seeming to judge her every move and thought.

After they were done, Sam called and told them the sad tale of a girl named Mary who wanted nothing more than to be famous. She was killed by someone who stabbed her in the eye as she sat in front of the mirror. She had tried to write the name of her killer on the mirror, but was unable to, and her case was never resolved.

"So, vengeful spirit?" Leia said, thanking her lucky stars. They were usually pretty easy to burn. "I know she was cremated, but maybe she's attached to the mirror she died in front of."

"Looked that up, too," Sam bragged. Leia rolled her eyes, but smiled, and Sam smiled as well. "The mirror is in an antique store... in Toledo."

"So that's why her spirit is here," Leia finished his idea. He nodded and smiled, and Dean scoffed.

"Okay, now that you two are back to your little puppy love stage, can we please go torch this mirror?" Dean asked. Sam nor Leia denied the puppy love comment, but agreed to leave with Dean. Leia broke into the antique store for them, since she was best with a simple bobby pin and lock as well as disabling the alarm system, and then Sam was the one who found the mirror.

However, Mary had different plans. As Leia found herself looking into a mirror without meaning to, Mary began to chant, "You killed her. You stabbed her. You watched her bleed, then burned her. You killed her. You stabbed her. You watched her bleed, then burned her. She was your friend."

Leia's eyes began to bleed as she screamed, "STOP!"

"Dean, we have to stop it!" Sam yelled, smashing the mirror. Mary climbed out in full body, beginning to go after Sam as Leia collapsed to the ground. Mary called him out on Jess' death, for not preventing it, and he felt his eyes beginning to liquify in his skull. He screamed out in pain as he heard Dean yell in a voice that seemed universes away, "Hey, ugly!"

Mary turned and hissed, then Sam fell to the ground, clutching his head. He cleared out the blood that had escaped and watched as Mary's reflection accused her embodiment of killing all those people, and then she died from the same fate she inflicted on others. Dean lit the mirror on fire as Sam struggled to get up and ran over to Leia, who was barely conscious and crying as watery blood ran down her cheeks.

Dean had spotted the name on the back of the mirror and was afraid to ask about it, but he knew he had to do. He asked gently, "Heather Grishom? The girl who used to live across the street and who was your best friend?"

"She was a demon, I... I didn't know what to do," Leia cried. "I had never encountered a demon before, I didn't know what she was, so I... I stabbed her. The demon left but she died. I burned her body so she couldn't come back and haunt me. I know it was horrible- I should've turned in her body so her family could've buried her, but..."

Sam wrapped her up in a hug, and she clutched Sam, sobbing into his chest. Dean asked, "She... she was possessed? For how long?"

"Only a few days. Now that I know the characteristics of a demonic possession, I can pinpoint the exact days where the demon was most rampant in her body," Leia said, still crying. Sam shushed her and just held her, giving his brother a facial expression that told him to shut up before Sam forced him to.

"It's okay," Sam promised Leia. "Sh, it's okay. You put her out of her pain."

Leia calmed down and passed out, but remained conscious. She began sleeping as Sam picked her up and got into the back of the car with her, resting her head on his lap. Sam sighed as his brother began driving, and Dean insisted, "Talk to me, Sammy."

"These are the days I just want to quit, to be normal. This is the reason I don't want to do this," Sam said bitterly, keeping his eyes on Leia's face.

"This is what we were raised to do, Sammy. It's like being trained your whole life to be an Olympic athlete, getting the chance to go, and then saying 'Nah, I'm good.' It doesn't make sense," Dean insisted. When his younger brother didn't respond, Dean sighed. "But, if you're really unhappy, then I guess you shouldn't keep going on like this is okay with you if it so obviously isn't."

"Right now, I can't just leave. I have to protect her," Sam promised, pushing her hair back and watching her sleep.

"Love makes you crazy, Sammy. Remember that," Dean warned.

Sam sighed and agreed silently with his brother's words. But he had his own theory. The reason love had run his life before is because he was so obsessed with trying to make things work when obviously they weren't because his one true love wasn't the one his attention was on. But now, things were different. Even though he still believed he had loved Jess, watching Leia sleep and seeing her almost die was the wake-up call Sam needed to remember one thing.

He had always been, and probably would always be, in love with Leia.


	9. 09

One week later, and they were finishing up a job dealing with a Shapeshifter. After one of Sam's law friends was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, Sam got suspicious and decided to go check it out. He found out that a shapeshifter was sneaking around town, changing forms just so he could get close to his victims. It was a sick game he'd bet anything a serial killer would love to play.

So, he, with the help with Dean and Leia, was able to take down the Shapeshifter, who died and killed in the form of Dean. It had been an unnerving experience for Sam to be shooting someone- or something- that looked so much like his brother, but it had to be done.

Leia and Dean were busy loading up the car, now, and Sam's friend, Rebecca, who was the sister of the now-innocent man, pulled Sam back. He looked at her curiously, and she smiled.

"You'll call, won't you?" Rebecca asked, her hand still on Sam's bicep. His eyes flitted down to her grip, then back up to her seductive eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted.

"Come on, lover boy!" Leia shouted out the window, leaning back into the passenger's seat and staring at the rearview mirror. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dean shaking his head and chuckling. She lifted one eyebrow both questioningly and threateningly, and he just gave her the Dean Smirk.

"You're jealous," he teased. Leia shoved his shoulder.

"Am not!"

"Are, too!"

"Am not!"

"Alright, alright you guys, let's stop bickering like five year olds," Sam said as he came up to the driver's side window. He opened the door and said, "Dean, out. I need my leg space, you won't let Leia drive, and she's not going in the back seat."

"Bu- what?" Dean sputtered. Leia threw back her head and laughed, fluttering her eyelashes at Dean.

"Be a gent, Dean, and get in the back," she said in a British accent. Dean huffed and got out of the car, and while he was struggling to get in the back seat, Sam sent a wink Leia's way that made her heart flutter. She gave an obnoxious one back, hoping to play it off, and succeeded; Sam chuckled and knew less than anybody about what was going on with Leia's hormones.

They rode all the way back to the hotel and were settling in for the night when Sam fell, clutching his head. Dean dropped the bags and ran to his brother, as Leia took a few moments to react.

"Sam, are you okay?" She gasped as she slid her knees towards him, helping him sit up. He groaned and started to fall again, but Dean helped Leia lift him up. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, but his breathing remained normal.

"I think he just blacked out," Dean said with surprising conviction. He stood up and slipped his hands underneath Sam's armpits. Leia noticed with a pang that if Sam were fine, he would've been laughing and pulling away- his armpits were extremely ticklish. She shook her head as Dean said, "Help me get him to the chair.

Leia nodded and picked up his feet as Dean, with his surprising strength, carried most of the weight to the car. They slid him onto the bed and Leia squatted next to him, brushing his hair out of his face. Dean went to the other room and began making a few calls as Leia sat in unfamiliar silence, the seriousness and tension of the situation settling in.

Dean was out getting some stuff for a voodoo spell one of his sources said would help Sam when Sam himself finally awoke with a gasp, blushing when he saw Leia's eyes were trained on him.

"Are you okay?" She asked in a small voice. Sam's eyebrows furrowed; that was so unlike her. He noticed she was sitting in the fetal position on a chair, her small figure able to fold so everything could fit on the seat. She was shaking, and it looked like she was clenching her teeth. Sam's eyebrows furrowed further.

"I'm fine," he said slowly, standing up and taking the blanket off of his bed and throwing it over Leia's legs. "Are you?"

"Yeah," she said with a small, nervous laugh as she ran her hand through her hair. "Just worried."

Sam's eyebrows continued to furrow further until he was sure he had a definite unibrow. "Why?"

"No reason," she almost whispered, standing up and pushing past him and to the bed. She laid down and told him, "Goodnight," but he knew neither of them would be getting much sleep that night.

Sam walked over to the bed and sat down, touching Leia's back gently. Suddenly, she turned and looked at him, then hugged him with all her might. He found himself holding her as tightly as he could, wishing he would never have to let go. She was crying into his chest softly, trying not to wake Dean, he knew. She eventually grew drowsy and he hugged her one last time, kissing her on the forehead as he laid her down.

He whispered to her, "Goodnight, love."

The next morning, Dean was out visiting an old hunting friend from his few years without Sam while Sam awoke before Leia and decided to get them some groceries so he could make her a proper breakfast. When he was waiting in the line to check out, however, a vision overcame him. He watched in paralyzed fear as Leia was taken and slid up to the ceiling, blood pouring from her stomach and fire engulfing the ceiling.

"Sir?" A woman asked him cautiously. "Sir, are you okay?"

Sam disregarded the woman and took off running. He sprinted to the hotel room, kicking down the door with his foot. He heard a scream and the cock of a gun, and was surprised to find that the barrel was directed towards him. It lowered and he saw Leia's face relaxing, then tensing up into an angry look.

"Samuel Winchester!" She yelled, throwing the gun down on the bed. "What is your problem! You just don't kick down doors like that to enter rooms!"

"I thought... you... danger... premonition," he said between his heavy breaths. Leia stepped towards him, her eyebrows knitted in concern and confusion. She understood; she didn't need to ask what had happened. Instead, she let him catch his breath, and then he stared at her. His facial expression was one she had seen a few times before, but he met her eyes instead of looking away this time. He spoke evenly when he admitted, "I thought I was going to lose you."

Leia's heart jumped and Sam ran up to her and wrapped her in his arms. She held onto him tightly, rubbing his back and just feeding off of his warmth and love. She finally had to ask him, "How did I die in your premonition?"

Sam clung to her tighter, and Leia knew. She knew that Sam had seen her the same way he had seen his mother and his ex-girlfriend: plastered to the ceiling, blood trickling from her stomach, fire swallowing her body whole. Beating her slow thought process, Sam said, "It wasn't in this room."

"Then... where?" Leia asked slowly, wondering if she wanted to know.

"Some hotel room I've never seen before," Sam said, breathing heavily. He pinched the bridge of his nose and complained, "The dreams have been becoming more and more vivid lately. I keep having this one dream of a girl screaming in a window. All I can see is her, the window, and a tree by the house."

"Is that what you keep drawing?" Leia asked. When Sam nodded, she asked, "Can I see it?"

Sam pulled one of the drawings from the coffee table, handing it to Leia with a warning that he was no Dali. She smiled, but that smile dropped from her face the moment she looked at the picture. Before Sam could even ask what was wrong, Leia looked up quickly and said, "This is outside your old house, in Lawrence. It... it was on sale before I met you guys again. I never even realized someone had moved in, but now that you mention it, I did see a little girl playing on the sidewalk when I left."

"Are you telling me that there's a woman screaming in my old house where my mother was killed by a demon and I was given psychic powers?" Leia swallowed and nodded, paling a shade. "Well, this is a job if I've ever seen one. We're lucky your parents are out of town so we can run about and pretend to be whomever without getting caught."

"Sam, are you sure this is a good idea? Like, this isn't karma coming back to bite you in the ass or anything, right?" Leia asked worriedly. Sam chuckled.

"I doubt. You shouldn't worry so much, Lei," he said, kissing her on the forehead. Both of them froze, slowly pulling apart to look at each other. The door opened and Dean walked in as Leia pulled away first, offering to help Dean with the groceries he had brought in. Sam filled him in about their findings. He looked from the eager Sam to the less-than-willing Leia, and sighed, going against Leia's telepathic plea to turn down the idea.

He told his younger brother, "Guess we're going home, Sammy."


	10. 10

When they arrived in Lawrence, all three of the twenty-somethings suffered from major deja vu. Dean flashed back to his first kiss, on the swing set in the park near their houses. Sam recalled his first kiss as well- Leia, while they were playing hide and go seek in her front yard and were hiding from Dean and Luke. They had been six years old at the time.

Leia, on the other hand, remembered past boyfriends and her high school life, since that was the most vivid time of her life although she only felt most alive when the Winchesters, her best friends and true love, were in town. They stopped across the street from the boys' old house, and Leia watched the brothers as they looked at the house.

gIt looks almost exactly like it did before the fire," Dean said, shaking his head. "Eerie."

gWe moved the memorial for your mom to town square," Leia said slowly, softly, knowing the guys had a range of reactions to discussions about their mom. In order to get off the topic and stop the awkward silence that was filling up the car, Leia said quickly, "Speaking of moms, let's go visit mine."

Dean chuckled as he parked the car and they all got out. "How's Mama Reed doing anyway?"

gAs far as I know, she's doing the same as she always is. Same with Papa," Leia said, smiling now and walking faster. Sam smiled at her excitement to see her family; obviously her relationship with them had somehow stayed intact even though she was a hunter and they had no idea what that even was.

gWell, hopefully she'll recognize me and not hit me upside the head and tell me to get away from her daughter," Sam said, grinning at Leia who grinned back in response. Even before Luke had died, Leia's mom had been very protective of the both of them, and was very strict but loving over their actions.

gShe won't. You and Dean both look so much like your parents when they were that age," Leia said, turning back around before Sam could make eye contact with her. She made it up to the front door and walked in, yelling, "Mama, I'm home!"

gLeia!" A little toddler screamed, running up and grabbing onto her leg. Leia wobbled, but Sam caught her as she chuckled, leaning down to swing the kid into her arms.

Sam looked at her curiously and she said, "Remember Torie from high school? This is her kid. She leaves town a lot for business and my parents babysit." Leia got closer to the kid's face and said, "Teddy, can you say hi to Sammy and Dean?"

gHi," the kid said shyly, hiding his face in her neck quickly afterward. Sam and Dean both grinned at each other, smirking at Leia since they always joked about how she'd make the best mom ever when the time came.

gSweetheart, how are..." Leia's mom came to a short stop in the foyer, looking at the two boys who towered over her daughter, one of their heads barely clearing the doorway. A few tense moments passed before a huge grin broke out across her face and she somehow managed to pull in the two boys at the same time, hugging them tightly and saying, "Sam, Dean, I never thought I'd see you two together again! Come in, come in. Mr. Reed isn't home right now, but he will be back tomorrow. He went to go visit some friends in Wisconsin."

gHe left you alone?" Leia asked sharply. Her mom 'tsk'ed her, but both Sam and Dean knew why the idea of her mom being home alone made the hair on the back of her neck stood up. It was the same reason that they hated to leave Leia alone- they felt she was unprotected.

gI don't understand why you are so insistent on us adhering to the buddy system when we're in our fifties," her mom said, rolling her eyes dismissively, but Sam could sense Leia was still on edge. He put a calming hand in the small of her back, and she relaxed into his grip like he always did. "Now, Sam, Dean, darlings, I must catch up with you. Leia, you go outside and play with Teddy while the boys and I stay inside and catch up."

Leia did as her mom asked, giving the boys a few words of luck before she left. Sam watched her play with Teddy out the window half of the time he was talking to Mrs. Reed, but she didn't seem to notice. When it grew dark, Leia brought a tired-out Teddy back in and announced that they had plans. Mrs. Reed didn't question as they headed back into the Impala,. Leia waited in the car for Dean and Sam to head over to their old house and confront the new family. When they came back, Dean reported that the daughter had claimed seeing a figure of flames in her closet. So, they decided to spend the night hanging out the house and watching it.

Five hours into the stakeout, at nearly midnight, Leia yawned, pulling her hair back into a messy bun. She patted her thighs and commented, "This is the most uneventful stakeout I've ever been in."

gI know what we can do," Dean said suggestively. Sam shot him a look.

gPerv," Leia commented half-heartedly, sounding sleepy. She yawned again and cuddled up in the back seat, pulling the blanket over her. "Can I just take a nap?"

Sam reached into the backseat and gently shook her, leaving his hand on her calf. "This thing can latch onto your dreams if you're within a mile radius of the house... and we are. So I'd recommend not to."

gI'm not a little kid, it's not gonna latch on my dreams, Sammy," she muttered. Sam shook her again and she glared at him, sitting up. "Fine, fine, I'm up."

gI vote we go scope out the place instead of just sitting here," Dean said. Leia clapped.

gThat's the best suggestion you've had all day!" Leia cried. Sam cracked a smile while Dean scowled. "Now, how wants to go with the Sleeping Beauty, a.k.a myself?"

gI will," Sam offered, getting out and helping Leia out of the backseat. While she leant in and got their weapons, Dean made an obscene gesture to Sam to signal that he needed to get his move on. Sam flicked him off just as Leia turned around. Sam looked at her with wide eyes, but she just shook her head and laughed.

gI'm neither surprised nor offended by that, so it's fine by me," she said, shivering. "Let's get going, I need warmth to flow through my bones now."

Right as they started to get out of the car, Leia heard a faint screaming noise. She looked up and saw the mother of the household staring at them and beating against her window. Stupidly, Leia pointed up and shouted, "Sam! Dean!"

The brothers looked up right before the mom was pulled away from the window and out of their sight. They took off running as Sam beat down the door, but it closed right behind him and locked Dean and Leia outside. Dean tried to kick it down, but nearly broke his leg, as Leia broke a window and tried to clear enough room for her to slip through. She finally managed to, and then she ran to the door and opened it for Dean. They ran upstairs together, following the screams, and found that the flaming figure was standing in front of Sam, keeping him from getting to Sari, the daughter, as he clutched the little boy.

gSam," Leia said, putting out her arms as he handed over the little boy. "You get the girl and get rid of the poltergeist somehow."

gWhat if... what if that's our mom?" Sam whispered, staring at the fiery figure. Leia hit him on the shoulder.

gMary Winchester would never haunt a home, especially hers, and she would not terrorize a young girl. So get that out of your head, because the idea is a roadblock and you two need to get Sari. I'll go outside with Jenny, if I can keep her outside with the news Sari is getting cornered by a fiery entity," Leia said as she rushed downstairs. Dean shook his head.

gI've said it once, but I'll say it again- please nail her before I lose my mind," Dean said.

gSo not the time," Sam grumbled. He finally managed to distract the entity as he scooped up Sari and sprinted downstairs. But as they passed by the nursery, Sam found himself lingering, drawn to the room. Dean, who had taken the lead and was practically pulling Sari by her hand, turned to find his brother entering the room where their mother had been killed.

gSam!" Dean roared, going to run after him, and letting Sari go. She ran out the front door like a smart girl while Dean got pushed out by some force. The door slammed shut again and Leia quickly handed over Ritchie to Jenny, making the hole in the window bigger for Dean to climb through because she knew the door wouldn't open for them again.

They both climbed through and sprinted to the nursery where the poltergeist had Sam pinned up against the wall. The fiery ball manifested into a figure, and they were all surprised to see Mary Winchester staring before them.

gI'm so sorry, sweethearts," she whispered, making eye contact with each of her boys and Leia. She looked somewhere into the distance and said, "Now, you get the hell out of my house."

Her figure burst into flames as Sam was released from the wall. Dean and Sam both cried and rushed for their mother as Leia watched with a wide mouth and tears in her eyes as she found the weakness of the two strongest people in her life. Although she might be dead, it seemed they'd do anything to bring their mother back to be with them.

Sam collapsed to the floor and hid his head in his hands. Dean sat beside him, putting an arm around him, while Leia sat in front of him. He kept muttering something about it being all his fault, and Dean and Leia shared a worried look. Between Mary and Jess' death, Sam had figured out it had something to do with him.

But what was it, exactly?


	11. 11

After they returned back to Leia's house, which they were sleeping at due to Mrs. Reed's incessant implications that they had no other choice, Sam lay in his bed in what he knew was Luke's old room. He had felt a weird connection with Luke since day one, and that's when he finally saw it- the small blood stain on the ceiling. It looked like red paint, but Sam knew better.

He found himself staring at it, wondering if maybe Luke hadn't died, but if...

He shook his head; the idea that Luke could've been a demon child like Sam was crazy. His mom was still alive, while Sam's wasn't. That was one of the initiation requirements that Luke didn't have.

The idea of the possibility disturbed Sam so much that he had a rough time falling asleep. He eventually snuck downstairs, slipping on a sweatshirt over his bare torso, and dismantling the alarm system for ten seconds so he could slip out the door without anybody noticing he was leaving. After he safely made it out, he headed toward town square, which was still softly lit up for those who were out at the bar late.

He found the memorial right where Leia promised it would be- literally in the middle of town square. There were pictures of his mom, of his family, of his parents surrounded by fresh flowers and yellowed love notes. He smiled and took a seat on the bench, then noticed there was a division between the plants.

He circled around curiously and found a whole memorial for Luke. He found himself looking at the pictures with a small smile, his cheeks pulling tighter whenever he saw Leia in a picture. He saw a picture of Luke and Leia playing in a crib with the label 'L & L - 4 months' beneath it. He picked it up and looked closer at the ceiling above the crib- no bloodstain.

Next to that picture was a picture of Luke sitting in a race car bed. The label this time said 'Luke, age one - first bed!' Sam covered his mouth as he observed the picture.

Above the bed was a red stain on the ceiling.

Sam dropped the picture and rushed home, trying to get the idea of Luke as a demon child, turned at the age of 6 months like every other child, out of his head. He crashed onto his bed and shut his eyes tight, not daring to look at the bloodstain above him. Somehow, the darkness finally overcame him as he went to sleep.

The next morning, Sam woke up and found a note from Dean on his forehead saying that he went to go pick up Mr. Reed from the airport. As Sam snuck downstairs, he found Leia sitting on the couch with a book in the living room. He hesitated a few moments before finally deciding that he had to tell Leia about his findings about Luke, especially due to his creepy nightmare he had suffered from the night before where the yellow-eyed demon had come specifically to him to taunt him about how he and Luke were, quite literally, blood brothers.

"Hey, Leia," Sam said as he walked into the room. She looked up from the book she had been reading and gave him a warm smile that made him feel even more guilty for what he was about to say. He looked about the house and asked, "Is your mom home?"

"No, sir. She and Dean went out with Teddy to go pick up my dad from the airport. Dean's surprisingly good with kids, did you know that?" Leia asked, looking back at her book as Sam took a seat next to her on the couch.

"Yeah, he's kind of always been good with little kids since he had to take care of me when we were little," Sam said, clearing his throat. "Speaking of brothers..."

Leia looked at him curiously, putting her book down. Sam spoke quickly, thinking maybe that would make his words seem truer. "I was sleeping in Luke's room last night, and I saw blood on the ceiling, right above where his crib is in all your family pictures. I went to his memorial and I saw a picture by his crib and it said he was only four months old, and there was no bloodstain on the ceiling. I saw one when he graduated to an actual bed and it was there. And I know you said the last time you saw your brother, he was calling something 'master' and I think... I think your brother's a pawn of the yellow-eyed demon."

Leia just stared at him, almost uncomprehendingly. She finally whispered, "No."

Sam suddenly felt an overwhelming need to prove his point to her. He took her by the hand and led her up the stairs, where he pointed to the ceiling. She softly admitted, "I've never... I've never noticed that before." She turned to Sam, her eyes full of tears. "Sam..."

She collapsed to the ground, tucking her legs into her chest and hiding her face in her thighs. Sam sat down with her and held her as she cried, saying, "No, no, no. My brother... he can't be a demon. He just... he can't, Sam."

"Sh, I know," he kept telling her until she fell asleep in his arms. He lifted her up and rested her on Luke's bed, then decided to move her back to her room since if she woke up beneath the bloodstain, she'd probably start her hysterics all over again. Sam felt guilty, but at the same time felt good that he had finally been able to provide Leia with some answers about her brother.

"I'm so sorry, love," Sam whispered, kissing her forehead and retreating downstairs.

An hour later, Teddy, Dean, and Mr. and Mrs. Reed returned home. Dean, Sam, and Mr. Reed caught up over beers while Mrs. Reed took Teddy home since his mom was finally home. While she was gone, Leia finally made it downstairs and greeted her dad, and somehow managed to keep a somewhat convincing smile on her face. When Dean announced that they had another job they needed to be getting too, Leia announced something of her own.

"I'm going to stay here for the time being," she said, more softly than she would normally speak. Dean looked at her curiously, while Sam nodded. Dean then shifted his curious gaze to his younger brother, who he realized already knew why Leia was pulling out of their trio for a little bit. "I just want to stay at home. I haven't been home in so long."

"Isn't that the truth? And we've missed you, darling," Mr. Reed said, reaching over and patting her hand. She smiled at him, but then looked at Sam and really did smile.

"I think it's time you two get some more brother-brother time," she said, shrugging. Dean looked outwardly confused now, but Sam smiled back at Leia. He could tell by the way she said it that she wasn't blaming him for revealing the secrets about Luke's disappearance; in fact, she was grateful.

So, moments later, the Impala was packed and they were saying goodbye to the Winchester boys. Mr. Reed watched on approvingly as Leia said goodbye to Dean, who took his rightful position behind the driver's wheel. She then turned to Sam, who looked at her cautiously.

"I'm not mad at you, Sammy," she told him, putting her hand on his bicep. "I actually want to thank you. Although it's probably not the answer I was preferring, they are answers nonetheless. And this gives me even more initiative to kill this douche bag."

Sam laughed and pulled Leia into a bear hug. He could feel her smile into his chest as he said, "Now, that's my girl."

"I'll definitely meet up with you guys soon, but I just honestly want to spend some time with my family right now. Keep me updated, though. If you don't call me at least once a day, I swear to God I'll come track you down just to make sure you're alive, okay?" Leia asked him. He laughed and hugged her again.

"I don't doubt you for a second, Mom," he said as he pulled away. "Bye, Lei."

She stepped away from the curb as he got into the car and rolled down his window to hear her response. Over the roar of Dean's engine, he could hardly make out what she said, but he finally registered it milliseconds before Dean pulled away from the driveway.

"See you soon, Sammy."


	12. 12

Leia was thoroughly enjoying her time away from the hunting scene, although she missed being in action and definitely missed Dean and, most importantly, Sam. She made sure they kept in touch everyday so she could make sure they were still alive and in one piece so she didn't have to haul over to wherever they were to safe their asses like she now commonly did.

One day, Sam called her twice. That was the first sign that something was wrong. The second was the gut feeling she had developed when regarding the Winchester boys and their well-being. Due to the fact that her stomach was in a pit, she knew it could only be bad news.

"Sammy?" She asked softly. Sam went straight into it.

"Dean and I were on an easy job, nothing difficult, but... the extra voltage taser found some sort of conductor and electrocuted him," Sam said softly. He took in a deep, but shaky, breath and said, "The doctor says he won't make it."

"Where are you?" Leia asked, already rushing to pack her stuff up. After Sam told her his location, she told him to stay put and that she'd be there in no time. She gave a rushed explanation and goodbye to her parents before booking it out the door, once again leaving everything she knew for the damn Winchester boys.

When she arrived at the hospital, Sam was sitting outside of Dean's room in a waiting room. He stood up and Leia hugged him tightly, reassuring him, "Dean won't go down without a fight. He's not going to die."

"You're right," Sam said, pulling away to look at her, "because I found a healer."

Leia looked at him in surprised confusion. She asked, for clarification, "A healer?"

Sam nodded, looking excited now. "Yes, a healer. He's supposed to work miracles- you know, put his hand on your head, whisper a few words to the big guy upstairs, and suddenly a paralyzed man can walk again. He can fix Dean."

Leia sighed. She knew that when Sam's mind was set on something like this, Sam got his way. So, she played along. After Dean was discharged, she helped Sam get him into the car and listened without comment as Sam explained about this healer. When they pulled up to a huge tent that looked like it belonged in a carnival, complete with a protestor outside the festivities and everything, Leia couldn't help but scoff and roll her eyes.

"Sammy, do you really think... ?"

"We won't know until we try," he said quickly, answering her unspoken question. They helped Dean inside and watched as the man healed another old man who had been depending on his oxygen system to provide him with air. But as he turned off the oxygen tank, he was able to breathe on his own.

"A parlor trick," Leia commented critically. "He hired the guy."

"Who is our next victim?" The man asked, wearing black sunglasses over his face. He searched with his face and said, "I'm sensing a non-believer who needs my help in the fourth row on my right, leaning against a pole for support. A man... with only days to live."

Leia rolled her eyes until she realized where she was standing. She and Sam slowly turned to Dean, who looked up in surprise at being picked so easily. The crowd broke out into somewhat tentative applause before he stood onstage and the man's hands clapped onto his shoulders. With a few words, Dean could feel his strength returning as he collapsed. Sam and Leia rushed forward and helped him up, only for the color to return to his face and the shine to return to his eyes.

"Did he really just... ?" Leia asked. She turned to Sam, and said, "Okay, I still don't believe it, though. Something fishy's going on here."

"Leia, sometimes there are miracles," Sam said, giving her a teasing smile.

"Not in my world, there aren't," she said, not smiling a bit. Sam looked at her worriedly, wondering why the usually optimistic Leia was frowning upon Dean being healed. She didn't look at Sam as she said, "You distract anyone who comes near the house, okay? I'm going to go investigate."

"Leia..." Sam said, but Leia was already pushing her way through the crowd and out of the tent. He sighed and waited for Dean to come back to him, filling him in as they went out to do a stakeout by the house. When the reverend and his wife tried to get back to their house, Dean and Sam awkwardly postponed their arrival with a copious amount of thank you's and hugs. Sam even elbowed Dean in the groin so tears would spring up into his eyes and he looked like an overemotional freak.

Finally, the reverend claimed he had to get inside to take his medicine. Sam didn't want the guy to die at his feet, but just as the reverend turned around to enter back inside his house, Leia bounced up. She thanked the reverend as she passed him, giving him a smile and a gentle pat on the shoulder, and Sam saw her pickpocket the wife, pulling a piece of paper out from within her coat. She waited until the reverend and his wife had entered the house, shutting the door behind them, before she skipped up to Sam and Dean with a smirk on her face.

"The wife had a dark altar in the basement," Leia said, handing her phone to Sam with photo evidence. "I basically started a mosh pit in there by myself. Broke all sorts of shit."

"What will keep her from putting up a new altar?" Dean asked.

"Well, I took the spell from her," Leia said, lifting up the piece of paper between her fingers, "but, in case she memorized it, which I'm sure she did, I took the most important part of her altar- an object I know that, for a fact, she will not be able to reproduce."

"What's that?" Sam asked. Leia reached into her shirt, and Dean's eyes shot up. Sam awkwardly couldn't decide if he should keep watching or look away, and Leia took immense enjoyment in their discomfort. She pulled out a bone, and Sam asked, after clearing his throat, "What is that?"

"A bone of a person whose soul became a Reaper. She needed it to summon it. Without it, unless she's got an amulet now that she forced the Reaper to craft, she can't summon him," Leia said, sliding the small bone back into its hiding place. "That's what you saw, wasn't it, Dean?"

He swallowed. "Maybe."

The wife came out of her house, and the three of them fell quiet. She posted a sign that claimed there would be another service that night, and then she looked around suspiciously. Leia pointedly looked away, suggesting to the guys, "I think it's time we go."

"Couldn't agree more," Sam said, instinctively putting a hand in her back as they walked back to the car. They drove to a hamburger shop and stayed there and talked about the scars they had all received as results of hunting accidents. Sam looked at his brother and Leia, laughing and comfortably talking, and he smiled. It was moments like these that he missed.

When Sam's phone alarm went off, they all got up with reluctance. They made their way back to the service, and waited calmly their positions. Dean waited by the house, Leia waited outside, and Sam watched the service. When the healing process began, Sam walked out. Leia pointed to her right; Sam nodded and went to her left.

Until she collapsed.

Sam ran back to her and saw the wife off in the distance. She dodged behind the tent and Dean somehow saw everything. He took off running toward the wife as Sam got Leia to stand up.

"Sam! The Reaper!" Leia screamed, pointing at the figure only she could see. His suit was dapper, but his face had creases and cracks in it like a cement sidewalk. Sam slid in front of her, but they both knew that would not help anything.

Sam roared, "Dean, now! It's coming for Leia!"

Leia could only see the absolute focus in the eyes of the Reaper. She clung to Sam, who had turned to face her and was embracing her, hoping to maybe smother her so the Reaper wouldn't notice she was there. He knew it was a foolish thought, but he would try anything to protect Leia. He watched over his shoulder and could feel the spirit approaching. Leia had stopped crying and commanded his attention. He obliged.

"Sam," she said, breathing slowly to calm herself down. He looked into her eyes and saw her fear, saw how she suppressed it to keep him sane. He also saw how she was convinced that she was about to die. She grabbed his face between her hands and said, "Sam, I've known you ever since I can remember. No matter how many times you guys left Lawrence, you always had to stop by and visit me, and I never realized how big of a deal that was until I started following your trail. When I finally caught up to you in your first year of Stanford and we started dating, I had this grand ideas about us living together forever and you know, all that romance movie crap. So when I found you and Dean in that bar, I felt like we..."

Leia hadn't noticed the Reaper had advanced. His hands reached through Sam and took hold of Leia's head. She gasped and fell as Sam caught her, screaming hysterically, "Dean! Dean!"

Sam then looked down at Leia, pushing back her hair and crying. "No, no, no. Leia, please don't do this to me. Please don't leave me again. Please, tell me what you were going to say. Please don't leave me like my mom and Jess did. I won't be able to stand it if I lose you, too."

Leia was turning gray now, choking like she was being strangled. She gripped to Sam and tears filled up her eyes. He held her to him, rocking back and forth.

And she gasped for air.


	13. 13

Sam pulled away and saw she was regaining her color, and she was still gripping the hell out of of his arm. She struggled to get air and as Sam watched her, Dean ran up and asked, "So, how'd I do?"

Leia blinked as if she had just seen whatever higher power there was with her own two eyes. Sam watched her as she regained her composure and looked up at Dean, smiling at him weakly and saying, "A little late, but not too late, thank God. If so, I would've come back and haunted your ass."

"I'd be insulted if you didn't," Dean shot back, hugging her tightly. "I'm glad you're okay, baby sis."

"Thanks, big bro," Leia said, hugging him back and smiling over Sam's shoulder. Sam smiled back weakly, but he couldn't help but think about how Leia had almost just died in front of his eyes, and he had been utterly helpless. The ride home was another one during which Leia couldn't stop talking and Sam sat, thoughtfully, while Dean made snide comments to Leia's monologue. When they got back home, Dean and Sam offered to go on a grocery run. When they got back, Leia was packing up her stuff.

"Going somewhere?" Sam asked, breaking out of the frost that had covered his body after he had almost had his one true love taken away from him by a Reaper.

"I've gotta get home, someone disturbed Luke's grave," Leia said, zipping her duffle bag shut.

"Do you want us to go with you?" Sam asked quickly. Leia smiled and shook her head.

"I don't think it was some demon digging it up, Sammy. I think I can handle it on my own, but thank you," Leia said, throwing her bag over her shoulder. She hugged Dean, then Sam, saying, "Please don't hesitate to call me if something's wrong or if you babies can't handle it."

Dean scoffed as Sam laughed and said, "We'll be sure to. Be careful, Lei."

"Always am, Sammy," she said, winking at him before she walked out the door and began embarking on the long drive home. The hours by herself in the car allowed her to think about the moments she had shared with Sam ever since seeing him again, the moments where she doubted ever leaving him the first time, and the moments she wish things had turned out a lot differently.

When she arrived in Lawrence, she headed straight to the cemetery even though the sun was starting to set. When she got there, several people from town were crowded around the grave. They all whispered as she walked by, and she looked at them curiously before she got to her parents, her mom sitting in almost an a coma at the foot of the grave.

"Mom!" Leia said worriedly, falling down beside her and putting her arms around her. "What's wrong?"

All Leia had to do was follow her mom's scared gaze into the grave and see why she was surprised. Sitting there in the coffin laid the last outfit any of them had ever seen Luke wearing, topped with a note that held a simple message.

_I'm not gone. -Luke_

"It's Luke's handwriting," Mrs. Reed whispered, as if Leia needed reminding. Flashlights clicked on around them as the sun fell behind the horizon, and Leia just held the piece of paper between her fingers. She placed it back in the coffin, then stood up, excusing herself as she headed back to the house.

She knew exactly what to do.

Meanwhile, Sam awoke from a horrible dream where a grown Luke was in the same room as Leia and they were going at it as Leia called him a demon and he tried to convince her otherwise. He quickly grabbed his phone and dialed Leia's number, knowing that Luke's upturned grave had something to do with this.

"Hello?" Leia asked tiredly.

"Leia! Hey, I just had this really weird dream where Luke visited you like, from the dead, and you were calling him a demon and stuff... just, be careful, okay? But up some symbols and stuff to protect your family, okay?" There was a moment of silence before Sam asked quietly, "Is he there right now?"

Leia laughed. "No, Sammy, of course not, don't be absurd. I'll put up some protection, okay? Hey, I've got to go, the police chief is here to ask me a few questions about the grave, I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

Leia hung up before Sam had a chance to say goodbye, but he just blamed it on the fact that she was probably very stressed due to her brother's empty grave being dug up. Leia knew he would have his suspicions, but he would never truly believe his dreams, and she used that to her advantage as she turned back to Luke and said, "So, you're a demon now?"

"Leia," Luke said, trying to get out of the devil's trap to hug her, but he was thrown back. Leia didn't move an inch and Luke sighed, looking upset with himself. "I didn't mean to do it, Leia, he was just... so convincing. He said he was going to hurt you, and hurt Mom and Dad, if I didn't join his ranks..."

"So you just gave in? That's not what Mom and Dad taught us, Luke. They'd be disappointed to hear that come out of your mouth. Please leave," Leia said, unable to take the fact that her brother was now a stranger.

"But you wanted me here! You summoned me here!" Luke said, growling, and suddenly becoming very violent and, well, demonic. But Leia wasn't one to be scared by a little demon acting up. So, she stood her ground, and turned on the violence because she knew one thing for sure.

This wasn't truly her brother.

"For one thing, and one thing only... to send you back to hell for infinity and get you the hell out of my brother's body," Leia said as she began reciting an exorcism spell a hunter friend had taught her many years ago. Her brother began yelling and tears streaked down her face. She paused before the last word and Luke looked down at her, meeting her eyes.

"I love you still, baby sis. Don't ever forget that," Luke whispered through the pain. He shut his eyes as his tears streaked down his face, and he said, "Please, get me out of here."

"_Gloria patri,_" Leia whispered as Luke screamed and black smoke flew out of his mouth and through the floor, erupting into flames and disappearing as his body collapsed. Leia ran to him, crying over him as she asked, "Luke, please? For me?"

"Leia," Luke whispered. Leia gasped.

"Luke! How... ?" She asked, and Luke smiled.

"I was possessed, baby sis. But I allowed myself to be possessed to protect you... and you saved me in the end. I don't..." Luke coughed and Leia stroked his hair out of his face. "I don't have much time, but I want you to know... I'm so proud of you."

"Luke," Leia cried as Luke's eyes shut and his body went limp. The front door opened and she heard fast footsteps, then gasps as everybody asked what happened.

So she told them the story about how Luke had been waiting when she had gotten home, and told her that he was very sick. She didn't understand what he was saying when he collapsed and he told her he was proud of her and that he loved her before his eyes shut forever. Condolences began spreading through the house as Mrs. Reed lost it, and Leia pulled away, feeling numb.

All that mattered is that her twin brother was now dead.

And somehow, she felt like it was all her fault.


	14. 14

Mrs. Reed was the one to call the Winchester boys. Leia, meanwhile, was getting checked out by a house doctor because she hadn't spoken since they found her with Luke in her lap, dead and limp with her tears upon his face. Sam had to bite his tongue when Mrs. Reed told him what had happened. If circumstances had been different, he would have killed Leia for lying to him about seeing Luke.

Sam and Dean dropped the job they were working on, calling in some hunter friends to pick it up as they headed back to Lawrence. When they arrived at the house, Mrs. Reed hugged them and thanked them for coming, filling them in quickly. Like Leia usually was, Mrs. Reed was strangely strong emotionally. She spoke to them in a matter-of-fact tone, telling them about how they'd have to do an autopsy and investigate to see why he had dropped so suddenly and see if they could tell where he had disappeared to in the first place.

"She's upstairs," Mrs. Reed said pointedly to Sam. "Dean, can you come help me with something in the kitchen?"

"Of course, ma'am," Dean said. The moment she turned, Dean sent Sam a look to be careful of what he said. Sam rolled his eyes, nodding as he headed up the stairs, taking two at a time. He knocked tentatively on Leia's door before entering. She was sitting on her bed, looking at a picture of her and Luke.

She looked up at Sam when he walked in and said, in a quiet voice, "Please don't say 'I told you so.'"

"Not the words I was thinking of, sweetie," Sam said, crawling onto her bed and wrapping his arms around her. She started crying instantly, digging her face into his chest. "Sh, Leia. I'm sorry, but you have to..."

"I know," she said, pulling away. "He was possessed. He allowed a demon into his body to protect our family, and I exorcised the demon and sent it back to hell because he asked me to. But it left him so weak, he only had a few moments before he died."

"Did he tell you anything about the Yellow-Eyed Demon?" Sam asked. Leia shook her head and Sam hugged her again, kissing the top of her head. "I'm just glad you're okay."

"The service is tomorrow. I want to head out right after," Leia said, standing from the bed and moving to the window. Sam stood with her, looking at her worriedly.

"Do you think that's such a good idea?" Sam asked.

"I just saw my brother die in my arms, Sam. Just please let me work so I have something to distract me, okay?" Leia asked. Sam swallowed and nodded, hugging her again. She dug her face into his chest while he just held her until their was another knock on the door and it opened to reveal Dean. Leia pulled away from Sam and smiled at his older brother. "Hey, Dean."

"Hey, darling," Dean said, hugging her and kissing her on the head just like Sam had, "how are you?"

"Been better," she said with a laugh as Sam saw her old self come out with every passing second. They sat on her bed and talked as Dean and Sam took turns telling Leia about the adventures she had missed, including a run-in with cannibals and a special kid just like Sam, where Sam found out he also had some telekinetic powers.

As they finished up their cannibalistic story, Sam noticed that Leia's eyes were starting to droop. He looked over at Dean, who cleared his throat and said, "I promised your mom I'd help her with something around 10, and it's 9:55. I'm going to go downstairs now. I'll see you later, Lei."

"Mhmm," she said as she let her eyes droop some more. Dean walked out the door and Leia yawned.

"You need to go to bed," Sam whispered to her, getting up from the bed to leave her alone. She grabbed his wrist and he turned to look at her, and saw the intensity in her eyes.

"Please don't leave me," she asked softly. Sam nodded, leaning down and kissing her forehead.

"I never will," he promised her, crawling back into bed beside her. She laid her head on his chest and he put his arm around her, and she was off to sleep. He stroked her hair, then her back, and eventually found himself drowsing off as well.

The service the next day was expectedly gray, and the whole community came to show their support for the boy scout who had helped them across the street, saved their cats from trees, and always protected his family over anything. Sam kept his arm around Leia the whole day, Dean close by as a back-up.

The moment the service was over and Leia said her goodbyes, they were back in the Impala and Dean was trying to cheer her up, and surprisingly succeeding. They stopped at a few McDonald's on the ride up to Chicago, where their next job was taking them, and they snuck into the play areas and goofed around, nearly breaking four different slides because the three of them were so big.

They finally made it to Chicago about 9AM the next morning, and immediately set out since they had all taken turns sleeping in the car during the trip up. Leia took on a FBI disguise while the brothers opted for alarm security men; when they went inside, they were virtually alone in the room with the taped body outline and splatters of blood.

"So, no forced entry, and a complete massacre. Nobody was here that she would've known, either, so... ?" Dean asked, looking at Sam and Leia for answers.

"Well, the blood is in a shape," Leia said, pointing at it. "I've seen it before, but I can't place it."

Dean took out his phone and snapped a quick shot before a few more police men came into the room. They looked at Sam and Dean warily and said, "You have to leave, as this is still a working crime scene. We will call your company when you can begin your investigation."

"They're with me. I still have a few more questions for them, sergeant, but I will walk them outside," Leia said, putting out her hand. "Agent Gina Tesserae, FBI, sir. I'd like to compare notes later, if you don't mind. I'll be back around six."

"Yes, ma'am," the police officer said as Leia waved her hand and the boys followed her out the door.

They got back in the car and Dean made the comment, "You know, it worries me that you're so good at lying. I even start to believe you sometimes."

"It's because girls usually only lie about their appearance- saying they're wearing no make up when they are, saying they didn't plan their outfit when they did, saying they only weigh 130 pounds when they weigh 140. They don't usually lie about being a federal agent," Leia said matter-of-factly, making Sam chuckle and Dean smile.

"Well, Agent Tesserae, we're going to get some midday drinks," Dean said, pulling into a bar as they all got out of the car, Dean and Sam changing into some normal clothes while Leia just took off her business jacket. They took a seat at the bar and began talking, planning in code so anyone who overheard them would have no idea what they were talking about.

A blonde girl walked up and said, "Oh, my God, Sam!"

Sam gave Leia and Dean, who were sitting across from him, a curious look before turning on his stool to face Meg. He smiled and gave her a hug and said, "Meg, how are you! Why are you not in California?"

"Didn't really pan out for me, sadly enough," Meg said, sighing as she looked past him and spotted Leia and Dean watching her curiously. "Oh, wow, this must be the brother and the best friend you were telling me all about. My name's Meg, Sam met me in a bus station."

"Oh, when I was dealing with the scarecrow issue, and Leia was at home. Perfect timing for Sammy to make a new friend," Dean said jokingly, causing Meg to laugh and Sam to chuckle. Leia, on the other hand, was not amused. She felt threatened by this girl, but not because she was flirtatious; she felt threatened because the girl was emitting bad vibes.

"Well, I've got to get going," Meg finally announced after small talk was exchanged and Leia stood silent. She met Leia's eyes firmly and said, "It was nice meeting you."

Leia smiled at her before Meg left, and then she turned to Sam. "Please tell me you don't believe she's accidentally here."

"I don't," Sam said firmly. Dean sighed.

"Okay, so she likes you and stalked you a bit, no need to freak out about it," Dean said, rolling his eyes. "She seems nice enough, like she has no ulterior motive about putting you in a body bag."

"I'm still going to follow her. I think she's harmless, but I still want to know what she's up to. Leia, Dean, you guys keep working on the symbol," Sam said as he grabbed his jacket. Leia nodded and got up behind Sam as she and Dean returned to the motel, Sam following Meg.

When they got back to the hotel, Leia couldn't focus on anything. She just kept thinking of all the things that could be happening to Sam.

"I have a bad feeling about this chick," Leia fretted as she paced the room. Dean rolled his eyes, then focused on the computer screen in front of him as he scrolled through Google images, looking for the now-familiar symbol they had found on the girl's floor. Leia continued to vent. "I mean, what are the chances that she just happens to be in Chicago when she's from Boston and told Sam she was going to California? I don't get it."

"Crazier things have happened. Or have you not been present during all the fights we've had with monsters?" Dean asked her. Leia took her turn with rolling her eyes. Dean continued. "I think it's just your jealousy talking."

"Excuse me?" Leia asked incredulously.

"I'm honestly just very surprised that Sam hasn't caught on by now. You're pretty obvious about it," Dean said, straightening up. "Not saying a word when Meg's around, asking him to stay with you in bed, always having those intense 'I wanna be in bed with you' staring contests..."

"Whatever, Dean. You're just seeing those things because you haven't gotten any in a while," Leia said.

"Trust me, if that was the issue, I'd either be imagining it coming at me, or I'd be paying for strippers. I'm doing just fine in my sexual endeavors, thank you very much," Dean said prissily as the door opened and Sam came flying in, breathing a little heavy and looking surprised.

"Meg's not kosher. She was at an altar, speaking in a different tongue. We need to go now to figure out what's going down," Sam said, breathing heavily as Leia threw Dean a smug look.

"Woah, woah, before we just rush in there, we need to know what we're dealing with. Caleb said he's about five seconds away from figur- okay, make that zero," Dean said as his eyes flitted down to the text Caleb had shot him. "We're dealing with a Daeva. We can ruin the altar to break them from Meg's control, and they're scared of extreme light if we need to fight them."

Sam, Dean, and Leia all looked at each other before packing up quickly and silently, making their way to the warehouse. Sam pointed to the elevator shaft, and Dean went up first, Sam forcing Leia to be in the middle because he always did small stuff like that to protect her.

"Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider does," Leia sang softly as she followed Dean up. Sam chuckled from below her, but Dean shot down a look as she shrugged her shoulders, not releasing her death grip on the bars she was using to scale the elevator shaft.

They finally made it to the edge, and Dean helped pull Leia up while Sam pulled himself up. The room was empty, until Meg said, "Hello, there."

They turned to face her, but she threw out her hand and they were attacked by what felt like the skinniest but most painful whips that had ever existed. They were quickly tied to chairs and beaten again, but they couldn't see their assaulters as black wind whispered about them. Finally, the air cleared, and Sam looked around at his brother and best friend.

Dean had suffered a few major lacerations to his face, but nothing serious. Leia, on the other hand, was digging her feet into the ground and wincing as blood poured from a wound on her abdomen, another large cut across her cheek. Her muscles and veins pulled at every angle as she struggled to keep the pain out and the screaming within, but Sam saw she was losing that battle.

Sam struggled against his own bonds, not listening to a single word that Meg was saying. He ripped through the bonds, lit a flare, and scared the Daveas away while he flipped the altar, breaking their curse. It all happened so quickly, Sam wasn't sure how it really all unfolded, but the Daveas turned on Meg, throwing her out the window. He ripped the bonds off of Dean and Leia, and he carried Leia down the stairs, Dean close behind him. They rushed back to the room, where they cleaned out the wound and bandaged it before Leia finally passed out from exhaustion.

Two hours later, she woke up and took some pain medication, telling Sam over and over again that she was okay. He still didn't believe her.

"I'm fine, Sammy. Look, I need to go get more bandages, do you guys need anything?" Leia asked. They shook their heads and she said, "Okay, I'll be back."

Sam watched her exit warily, knowing that even if he fought her on leaving, she'd still leave. The moment the door shut, Dean turned to Sam and asked, "When the hell will you grow a pair and tell her that you love her?"

"Excuse me?" Sam asked, getting up to get a drink.

"I'm not dumb, Sam. I'm your older brother and..."

There was a knock on the door that replicated their secret knock they used whenever they wanted into a locked room. Sam put a finger to his lips to get Dean to shut up, then walked over to the door and opened it, asking, "Hey Leia, what'd you for..."

When Sam saw who it was, he froze. Dean stood up cautiously from his bed, cocking his gun and pointing it at the figure standing before Sam. He hesitated a few moments before lowering his gun because, standing before them, was a very familiar figure, who smiled apologetically.

John Winchester greeted them with a simple, "Hey, boys."


	15. 15

John closed the door behind him and walked into the room, barely being able to squeeze by Sam as he did so. Several awkward, silent moments went by before the door opened again.

"Well, Dean, they didn't have a cherry pie, so I'm sorry, but you'll have to do your Warrant tribute another day," Leia said as she struggled with the bags and the hotel room door. She growled and her head shot up, asking, "Is someone going to hel- oh, Mr. Winchester."

John smiled as Sam jumped up and took the bags from Leia, swinging them into the kitchen and trying to keep himself busy so he could keep himself from arguing with his dad. John stood up and hugged Leia saying, "I heard you were keeping an eye on my boys."

"Someone had to," Leia said with a smirk.

"There's nobody I'd trust them with more," John admitted, kissing her forehead. "It's good to see you, sweetie."

"Wait, you knew that she was a hunter?" Dean asked.

"We worked together whenever you weren't available for one reason or another," John said, nodding his head. "She liked to keep it a secret from you, though. She didn't want Sam finding out that she was hunter, and she knew that the moment you found out she was, you'd ring him up and use her as a playing card to get him back in the game."

"Oh, that's... probably a valid statement," Dean said begrudgingly as Leia smiled.

"I just know you both too well. Dean just wanted the family back on the road together, and Sam needed incentive to come. Old best friend in danger of demon attacks seems to be pretty good incentive," Leia said as she took the bags to the kitchenette area and began putting the food away. "So, John, to what do we owe the pleasure?"

"I got Dean's call, asking me to come out. He said it was really important," John said, sitting down in one of the recliners the room offered.

"So, that's all I had to say to get you to come out?" Dean asked in angry shock. "'Hey, Daddy, I've got something really important for you out here.' I'm sorry, but that could range from anything to nothing. I've called you on the verge of tears before, and you haven't answered at all."

"Caleb called me," John admitted after Sam and Leia shared a worried look and a silent moment, telepathically contemplating Dean's anger. "He told me about how you said you thought you were close to The Demon, and how you thought the girl you were fighting was somehow related to it. So, I came here as fast as I could. I'm assuming I already missed the fight."

"Yeah, we killed the girl and released the Daveas from her grip, no thanks to you," Dean growled, lying down on his bed as he turned on the TV, all but verbally dismissing his father, who sighed and turned to Sam. Sam raised his hands in a surrendering motion, signaling that he was siding with Dean on this one, before he also laid on his bed. John then turned to Leia, who groaned.

"I apologize for their immature behaviors. They hold grudges worse than teenage girls," Leia said, grabbing a beer for John and sliding it to him across the dining room table he was now sitting at. She grabbed her own beer and took a seat at the table with him, asking him, "Is that really why you came here? Because you think The Demon is close?"

John nodded, taking a swig of his beer. "As hunter, you have this sixth sense, a sort of instinct when you're close to a big kill. It's been rumbling in my stomach for a while now, but now the adrenaline's kicking my heart."

Leia smiled. "I understand. But, and I mean this with all due respect, I don't think it's right to keep searching together."

John's eyebrows furrowed together. "What do you mean?"

"Meg, the girl we fought, said something to us about how we were bait for you. I think as long as all four of us are together, there could be a great amount of risk involved. I also feel as if sometimes, I'm intruding on the boys when they want to talk about you, which, recently, is pretty often. We could also cover more territory if we split up, and..."

"Are you suggesting that you come with me, and Sam and Dean go another way, and then we reconvene?" John asked. Leia nodded in affirmation of his assumption, and he sighed. "While that's a fantastic idea, darling, no sarcasm intended, do you think either of my boys, never mind Sammy, is going to let you out of their sight now that they know The Demon is so close?"

Leia looked over at the boys, who were still watching TV, and they both looked away from her simultaneously before pretending that they were very interested in the Spanish soap opera Dean just happened to turn on. She sighed and turned back to John. "I think they'd understand if I said that you wanted to just got look at the old house, and I needed to go back to deal with some family issues."

John's eyes narrowed and he said, "That might just work."

"Trust me," Leia whispered, "I'm used to playing these boys so hard. To protect them, of course."

"Whatever you need to do, darling," John said, laughing and taking another sip of his beer. Leia stood up and nodded, heading back to the main room. She stood right in front of the TV, putting her hands on her hips as Dean groaned.

"I was half-watching that!" He complained.

"I just want you guys to hear what's going on. Your dad is going to leave for the time being, because I personally don't think it's safe to have all three Winchesters in the same place at once. It makes it entirely too easy for The Demon to kill you all off. After our next job, because my adrenaline is still rushing, I'm going to meet up with your dad where ever he is. We're going to go back to Lawrence, because he wants to revisit the old house and my family, and I have some family issues I need to deal with anyway. Then, when either one of our groups makes serious progression, we'll meet up and talk," Leia said. Dean and Sam both stared at her as John walked in.

"So you think that we're just going to let you out of our sight when The Demon is so close?" Dean asked.

Leia sighed. "One job, I'll stay with you guys. Please, Teddy's in the hospital and I really want to go home, and your dad just happens to go with me. I won't be alone. I'll have the third best Winchester with me."

Dean looked over at Sam for his opinion, and although Sam looked more unhappy about than Dean did, he didn't say a word. He just sighed and rolled over, going to fall asleep. Leia rolled her eyes and said, "Okay, so that's a plan. Boys, say bye to your dad."

Leia left the room to let the boys have a private moment. After they were done, John walked outside and he laughed, giving Leia a kiss on the forehead. "I'm so glad my sons are with you, smartie. I'll catch you on the flip side, okay?"

"Sounds good to me," Leia said as she returned back inside. The boys both looked at her, and she sighed. "Guys, please don't be mad at me. My adrenaline's still rushing, and I want to go do another job, and we can't function correctly if you guys are upset, okay?"

Dean grunted, then put down the newspaper he was reading. "A bunch of kids in Texas are claiming that there was a body in a supposedly haunted house, but when the police came, there was no body and the kids were stunned. They weren't drunk, high, or crazy either."

Leia winced. "That slow of a day, huh? Well, we better get going."

Although Leia claimed her adrenaline was rushing, she crashed on the trip there although she had promised to drive the middle shift. Sam took over her shift and Dean got in a lot of sleep as well, leaving Sam alone with his thoughts. He wasn't sure how he felt about Leia leaving to go on a trip with his father. He trusted his father, but at the same time, if The Demon came to him and said that John could kill him if The Demon could kill Leia first, Sam sadly didn't put it past his father to sacrifice Leia. He also didn't put it past Leia to willingly sacrifice herself.

When they got to Texas, Leia was still passed out in the back seat, so Sam parallel-parked and got out with Dean to a fast food place, where they found three of the kids that were ID'd in the article. They quickly found the source of their wish to visit the place: a friend named Craig who worked at the local record store.

So, they headed over there, Leia still dreaming in the back seat when they pulled up. They left her in the back again although Dean insisted they should wake her up, but Sam hadn't seen her sleep this well in God knows how long. Dean finally gave in as they went in and began questioning Craig, who told them that his cousin Dana had told him the story.

They finally decided to head over to the haunted house, and when they came to their destination this time around, Sam woke Leia up. Sure enough, she got mad at him for not waking her up earlier, and Dean had a smug look on his face when they entered the house.

Leia's hand found Sam's, like it normally did when it was this dark and creepy. They slunk through the house quietly, Dean leading the way, Leia in the middle, until they heard guys talking. Dean gave Sam and Leia a curious look before they pushed through a door and found two guys talking. They screamed when Dean, Sam, and Leia busted in.

"Jesus Christ," one of the guys commented, clutching his chest. "Way to give me a heart attack, bro!"

"Bro?" Dean asked, getting his offended voice on.

"Okay, okay, okay, back it up, hothead," Leia said, taking her hand out of Sam's and stepping in front of Dean, using her hand to push him back. She looked back at the two boys, one of which had a handheld camera, and she smiled. "Hi, my name's Leia. Who are you guys?"

"We're professionals. Perhaps you've heard of us- ?" they asked. Dean smirked and sent another smug look to Sam, who sighed. "We're researching the paranormal activity here."

"I think it's a bust," Dean said. "We've searched the whole house."

"Sure, you have. Just let the real professionals do their work, okay, bro?" The one with glasses said, looking over at Leia. "Although, you could help out, baby."

"Please," Leia scoffed. "Guys, let's go. This is a bust."

Leia left with the boys right on her heel as they drove back to the hotel. Sam and Dean passed out, but Leia went on the dorks' website and read their myth about Mordechai. She must've fallen asleep on her computer, because when she woke up the next morning, she could smell fresh coffee.

"It's amazing what I have to do to wake you up," Sam commented, handing her the usual. She smiled at him gratefully and sipped the caffeine as Dean laid out the schedule for the day. Dean would go to the police department to see if there was a matching description for a missing girl, while Sam and Leia would head to the library and see if they could find anything on the dude's legend.

Dean dropped the two of them off at the library, and they immediately began searching. Around lunch time, they called it quits and left with the closest they could find to share with Dean. As they walked out, Sam stopped Leia.

"Leia, before Dean meets up with us, can we talk about something?" Sam asked. Leia's heart soared as she nodded, and Sam sat down on the steps of the library. She followed suit, and he sighed, saying, "It's about you traveling around with my dad."

Leia's heart fell. "Oh. What's wrong with that?"

"It's just that... I worry about you being alone with my dad. He'll do anything to kill that demon, even if it includes lying your life down on the line. Additionally, the demon will be strong, stronger than both you and my dad. I don't want you getting in the way, fighting a fight that isn't yours," he said carefully. Leia's face instantly turned red, and Sam wish he hadn't had said anything.

"First off, I know you're pissed at your dad for everything he's done to you, but he's a fantastic hunter and he's like my second father. I don't think he'd sacrifice my life for the Demon's. Additionally, it is my fight, or do you not forget the fact my brother died in my arms thanks to that demon? And while we're on the subject, sort of, I'm not the little girl who you and Dean used to pick on! I'm not the little girl that you left!" Leia yelled at Sam, whose heart ripped at the simple word "left". Leia stared at him indignantly and said, "I'm not some frail baby doll, Sam. I can take care of myself, and if you don't start respecting that, I'm not going to stay around just to make you guys sandwiches. In fact, I think it's time for me to leave for now."

"Leia..." Sam said. Leia shook her head adamantly.

"I'm up to here with you right now, Sam. I need to be heading back soon anyway; John texted me and told me he's already done with his first job," she said as she hailed a cab. "I'll see you later, Sam. Say bye to Dean for me."

So she got in the car and drove away, leaving Sam alone and confused.


	16. 16

Sam sat on the stairs dejectedly until Dean came up and picked him up. He asked what happened, but Sam gave him the short-hand version: She had left, plain and simple. Dean knew not to ask any more questions in risk of rubbing salt in the wound, so he just drove away from the library and made it back home.

They worked through a few more odd jobs, waiting for The Demon to pop up again on their radar. Suddenly, Dean caught a name in a obituary that he recognized- Daniel Elkins. He had to do a bit of speedreading and digging in John's mess of a journal, but then he found the name, along with an address. They had no other leads on anything, so they figured a visit to this Daniel Elkins' house for his memory couldn't hurt.

When they arrived, the place looked like it had been viciously torn apart.

"Someone was looking for something alright," Dean said, beginning to lift things and search underneath them for any clue as to what that item may be and why the searcher may have wanted it.

"The real question is, though, did they find it?" Sam asked, doing the same as his elder brother. He moved aside some papers and found a journal just like their dad's, opening it to reveal a post office combination. He smiled and said, "Bingo."

Dean walked over curiously to his younger brother, examining his find. He looked at the address and said, "We passed it on the way here, it's about ten minutes out. It wouldn't hurt to go check what this kook has locked up in his safety deposit box, would it?"

Sam shook his head as they got back in the car and headed to the post office. When they opened up the drop box, they found a note with the letters 'JW' written carefully on the front. Dean, who had picked up the envelope, gave a skeptical look to his brother before sliding his finger underneath the close.

"I believe that's mine," a deep voice said from behind them. Sam took out his gun, which was loaded with rock-salt, and pointed it at the new person. They put their hands up in the air, smiling at them. Sam lowered his gun, hiding it back in his pocket as his dad smiled back at him. "Hello, son. May I see that message?"

Dean handed over the paper to him while Sam looked around curiously. He finally turned back to his dad and asked, "Where's Leia?"

"Oh, she stayed in Lawrence when I left. Teddy's in the hospital, you know, and she wants to make sure he makes it back out. That's the only fault with Leia- she's still tied down, partially, and you never know when those hometown roots are going to pull her back," John said, opening up the letter.

"She didn't want to come with you to work with us?" Sam asked carefully, trying to act it off as if he didn't care. Dean looked at his brother curiously, and John frowned.

"I'm sorry, Sam. She didn't really seem too happy with you when she arrived. She was venting about how you kept treating her like a little girl and had no respect for her. Although I know the second part isn't true, I agree with the first part. You do have this thing you do when you belittle her, and she's a lot stronger than you'd think. Now, do you mind to give me a little peace and quiet so I can read this letter?" John asked, getting a little bit cranky. Sam shook his head, remaining quiet as his dad read the letter. He smirked, then looked back up at the boys.

"What?" Dean asked impatiently.

"I think we've found the old owner of the Colt," John said, folding the letter and placing it in his back pocket before returning back outside. Before the boys had a chance to ask, John told them, "The Colt is a gun that can kill anything. It's mostly a legend, although now I have reason to believe it wasn't, and that Elkins had it. How'd you find him?"

"Excuse me?" Sam asked.

"Elkins. How'd you find Elkins' home? Blood splattered everywhere, cleanliness, what?" John asked.

"Blood on the ground," Dean affirmed. John laughed, pulling a hand through his hair. "What is it?"

"Vampires," John said. Sam and Dean looked at each other. "And they took the damn Colt. Well, come on boys."

"Where are we going?" Sam asked. John looked over his shoulder at his youngest son, smiling.

"We're going to go kill Edward Cullen and his gang."

–

After the face-off with the vampires, the three Winchester boys decided to hunt The Demon together. John, surprisingly, was the one who said they needed a fourth person for if they should ever split up on a plan, and that it was time to call up Leia and try to get her to come back.

It couldn't be a coincidence, however, when John found some irregularities occurring in Lawrence- the same signs that occurred before a demonic appearance by their least favorite entity in the universe. John shared this news with the Winchester boys, and they constantly tried to call Leia as they drove to Lawrence to warn her to get out of there with her family.

Leia, however, was oblivious to the material of their call. She thought it was just Sam trying to call and apologize, but she wasn't ready to hear his excuses yet. She looked over at her phone and read the messages on the screen.

52 missed calls from Sam Winchester.

12 missed calls from Dean Winchester.

8 missed calls from John Winchester.

7 missed calls from unknown number.

"You're racking up a phone bill, Sammy," Leia muttered to herself, closing her phone as she plugged it into the charger and started getting ready for bed. She massaged her tense shoulders to relax herself, then changed into her PJs and climbed into bed, snuggling up to her pillow. She tossed and turned and couldn't fall asleep, so she got up and changed clothes once more. She slipped on her tennis shoes and slipped out the back door, going for a quick run.

As she ran, she thought of everything that had been happening: her conflicting feelings for Sam, the fact that they were so close to The Demon that had ruined all of their lives, and... well, once again, her feelings for Sam. Ever since she had seen him at the bar, she couldn't get that nagging feeling that they needed to be together away, and it was driving her crazy.

She was so deep into thoughts that she didn't smell the smoke until she was one block away. She looked up and saw the fire reaching above rooftops, then looked around. She began racing, heading around the corner as she saw that her house was, indeed, on fire. It was contained for the most part, but she ripped her earbuds out and continued racing down the street, fearful that her mother might have been in the room that she now noticed was Luke's old room.

It couldn't be a coincidence that they were so close to The Demon and that Luke's room suddenly caught fire.

As Leia got closer to the house, she could finally make out words of the crowd's that had formed over the sound of the sirens, the cackling fire, and the high power water house. More importantly, she could hear two very dominant voices above the rest.

"Where is Leia?" Sam roared above the night.

"I don't know, she was supposed to be in her room and she wasn't!" Dean yelled back, sounding almost as scared and worried as Sam. Leia's heart warmed even though tears were streaking down her face as she ran around the corner. The moment she stepped around the corner, Sam whirled towards her.

"Leia," he whispered. Leia somehow managed to look behind him and saw Dean, then her whole family, intact and uninjured. She met Sam's eyes again and rushed toward him while he ran to meet her halfway. He grabbed her face and she grabbed his shirt, pulling themselves together as their lips crushed together. She knew that he had saved her family, had saved her.

And that was all she had ever wanted from him.


	17. 17

Sam and Leia pulled apart from each other as Dean, who had run up behind Sam to greet Leia, commented from his frozen stance, "Well, that almost became an awkward and accidental threeway."

Leia laughed and ran over to Dean, hugging him tightly. "Thank you for saving my family, you guys. I'm assuming this had something to do with The Demon, and you guys saw the signs and headed out here to save them?"

"You really do know us too well," Dean said as Leia's mom walked up.

"They said the fire barely damaged anything, that they got to it in perfect timing. They got here within record time, too. Someone else called and probably saved the house. Dean and Sam, on the other hand, saved our lives. I was sleeping in my room; I probably would have been poisoned by the fumes," Mrs. Reed said, smiling at the two brothers as she kissed their cheeks in thanks, then sighed as she pulled away. "But now that they're back, I'm assuming that means you're leaving?"

"Mom, I can stay if you need me to," Leia said quickly. Mrs. Reed's eyes flitted down to her hand, which was laced through Sam's, and she smiled, shaking her head and bringing her daughter into a hug, pulling out her duffle bag from behind her and handing it to her.

"I don't need you right now. Plus, you need to keep him this time around," Mrs. Reed teased as Leia covered her mouth and Dean laughed at her discomfort. Mrs. Reed shrugged and asked, "What? I still want you two to get married someday."

"Okay, bye, Mom!" Leia yelled at her as she pulled Sam away, grabbing Dean with her other hand. She could hear her mother's laughter all the way to the car, but before they got in, Leia blocked the driver's door. She looked at the two brother suspiciously and asked, "So, why are you really here?"

Dean didn't bother beating around the bush. "We found the Colt."

Leia's face lit up. "So now we have something to kill the demon with."

"That's what we're assuming," Sam said, nodding as they got into the car, Leia crawling into the back seat as Sam watched her butt freely this time around, smiling to himself at the thought that he could now do that whenever he wanted without fear of being questioned. He got in the car behind her, closing his door before saying, "We're meeting up with my dad in Manning, Colorado, then deciding what to do from there on, out."

"Sounds good to me. So, John's sticking around?" Leia asked as Dean cranked up the Def Leppard and headed toward the highway.

"For now, at least, thanks to you. You finally convinced him working together was better," Dean said. Sam saw Leia's head drooping, so he turned down the music a little bit. Dean caught on and told her, "Go to sleep, Leia. You don't know how much sleep we may or may not be getting within the next couple of days or so."

"If you insist," she murmured, passing out for the remainder of the trip.

When they finally arrived in Colorado, they shuffled into a bar where John was already waiting for them. He gave a smile to Leia as a greeting, then went straight into business, straight to the point like usual. He popped open his journal and began rushing through all the data he had, discussing the signs the demon left behind- storms, electrical outages, and its targets were usually a family with a six-month-old baby.

"That's why The Demon came for Luke," Leia said thoughtfully. John nodded.

"Yes, and my belief is that The Demon does something to to children, which would explain Sam's apparent 'powers' or whatever and Luke's immense loyalty to him in later years," John said. Sam looked at John with a look as if he had just been shot.

"So you're telling me I'm to blame for Mom's and Jess' deaths?" Sam asked me. John looked unphased, but Leia and Dean shared a worried look. He already blamed himself enough for not being able to protect them, but now that he knew he was the reason The Demon came around in the first place, he'd really take that with him.

"No," John said. "You didn't help, either, though."

"John," Leia hissed as she grabbed Sam's hand. John gave her an entertained smile.

"You sound exactly like Mary," John said. Sam squeezed Leia's hand as he grew more upset.

"Don't even say that, you'll curse her," Sam growled. Leia quickly pushed him back and began whispering to him, telling him to calm down, but Dean was the one to diffuse the situation. John continued to talk about how the next town with the signs showing was a small town called Salvation in Iowa. They went their different ways, Sam and Leia climbing into the back of Dean's Impala together so she could just sit with him and remind him every five seconds that he wasn't the cause for Jess' and Mary's deaths.

They had made it off the highway in Iowa when John suddenly pulled over. Dean curiously trailed after him, getting out of the car as Leia did the same, telling Sam to stay because she feared they'd get in another fight. They watched as John got out of his truck and kicked the wheels, cussing. Dean asked carefully, "What's wrong?"

"They got Pastor Jim. The demons fucking killed him!" John roared. Dean pushed Leia back a little bit, because he knew how his dad wasn't scared to rough it up a little bit when he got angry, and Pastor Jim had been one of his closest friends. John, his chest still heaving as Sam got out of the car curiously and pulled Leia into his arms protectively, put his hands against his truck and breathed out, "This ends... now. I'm ending it. I don't care what it takes."

"We're right behind you," Leia spoke up although Sam was still trying to keep her away from his dad for the same fears Dean had. "He took my brother and my second mother, and although I don't remember her, it hurts all the same. We all have deals we want to finish with the Devil, and we will get our vengeance, for Mary, for Jess, for Jim, for Luke, and for all of the demons' other innocent victims."

"We need to get to Salvation fast," John said, suddenly fueled by Leia's inspirational speech. "We need to find that family and protect them."

Dean nodded and herded Sam and Leia back to the car as she commented, "I still think it's highly ironic that this town's name is Salvation."

Dean and Sam both chuckled as Leia got back in the car, continuing their trip to Salvation. They immediately hit up the hospitals and town hall upon arrival, Leia acting like a nurse to get access to records. They pored over the papers upon papers, while Sam tried to figure out how to hack into the city's mainframe.

"Anything yet?" Dean yelled at his younger brother, who walked in holding a stack of papers.

"I ran a few different programs, crossed them over, and bada-bing, bada-boom, here's a list," Sam said, placing the list before Dean.

"And that's why you don't get laid," Dean said, chuckling to himself.

"Actually, that's why I picked him over you, the ignorant asshole," Leia cut in, grabbing Sam's head and pulling him towards her. She could feel him smile against her lips, and so did she, pulling away so she could smirk at Dean when he began his retching noises. "Oh, please. Sometimes, it's a wonder how you're considered to be the older brother."

"I could show you, if you'd like," Dean said, teasingly flirtatious as Sam smiled and rolled his eyes. Leia scoffed in mock offense while John walked out and gave them his fatherly look, to which they responded to by all lowering their heads over their respective lists and beginning to narrow it down to which family was The Demon's next target.

Suddenly, Sam groaned and clutched his head. Leia jumped up, but John roared, "Don't touch him!"

He struggled for a few moments, seeming to have a slight seizure, before he opened his eyes and said, "I just had a vision. The baby's name is Rosie."

Leia quickly went to the list Sam had just put before Dean, scanning it quickly and finding the name and corresponding address. Right as they were about to head out to investigate the outside of the house, Sam's phone rang. He answered it without second thought, but his face went pale the moment he held it up to his ear and heard the voice on the other end.

"Put John Winchester on the phone, now," Meg's voice demanded. Sam swallowed and handed it to his dad, and when he heard who it was, he put his hand over the receiver.

"I thought you killed her," John said disapprovingly.

"So did we," Dean said in defense of Sam as John turned back to the phone call, asking her what she wanted. He then put her on speaker phone so Leia, Sam, and Dean could hear her wishes.

"I killed Jim Murphy," she started off.

"Son of a... !" John roared, but Meg cut him off again.

"Actually, daughter of the Devil would be more apt. However, that aside, I'm with your friend Caleb right now," she said slowly. Sam put a hand out to Leia to make sure she was still behind him, and she grabbed it willingly. Leia could just imagine Meg putting her knife to Caleb's throat. "Where's the Colt, John?"

"The Colt?" John laughed easily, almost convincing Leia he didn't know anything about it. "That's just a myth. Can you please leave Caleb alone?"

"I know you're lying, John. Where is it?" Meg asked, emphasizing her words. John denied knowing anything about it again, and they heard a small scuffle, a gasp, and the undeniable sound of someone's throat being slit. Leia squeezed Sam's hand and he pulled her into his arms again, looking at his dad worriedly.

"Until you tell me where the Colt is, John, I will kill every last one of your friends, ending with your sons and your psuedo-daughter," Meg threatened. John looked over at Sam, Dean, and Leia, who looked ready to fight the next person who knocked on the door, they were so on edge.

So, he sighed and gave in. "I'll meet you in Lincoln, tonight at midnight."

"Sounds good to me. See you then," Meg promised, hanging up the phone. John threw the phone to the bed and Dean immediately short forward, grabbing the Colt from the table.

"Are you kidding me, Dad? This is our only chance at killing the Demon that killed Mom, and you think I'm just going to let you hand it over to this crazy ass chick that should've died a month ago? You have another thought coming," Dean hissed. John sighed.

"I'm not going to give her the actual Colt, stupid. She doesn't know what it looks like- almost no one does unless they've owned it, and its only ever belonged to Samuel Colt and Daniel Elkins before. So unless she was sleeping with one of them, which I highly doubt, she's probably never even seen the damn thing. So, I'll use a fake," John said, pulling out another perfectly crafted gun.

"Did you have a feeling this was going to happen, or what?" Leia asked. John smiled at her.

"Be prepared for every situation, sweetie, you know that," he said to her, sliding the gun into the back of his pants. "I think this should be a solo mission, though. I want you guys to help that family out, and the more of you there, the better."

"If you think we're letting you go alone, you're wrong. Have you not learned anything about going places alone?" Dean asked.

"I've learned that it seems to keep the rest of you out of trouble, and your job needs to go off without a hitch. I've done some bad things in my life, son, and I wouldn't be surprised if at heaven's gates, God told me it was about time I died for my sins. But that baby certainly has not done anything seventh-layer-of-hell worthy like I have, and she deserves to live longer than I do," John said. When Dean still looked unsure about it, he added, "That's an order, son."

Dean sighed as they said their quick goodbyes, thinking nothing of it. They packed up the Impala and headed out to Rosie's house, waiting patiently for the signs to begin. Leia was just dozing off when the radio stations began fluctuating, the lights outside started flickering, and a small storm picked up. Leia, who had been chilling on the arm rest between the two boys' front seats, said, "I think it's time we go."

"Yup," Sam said as they all piled out of the car, running up to the house. They opened the front door and while Dean took on the husband who yelled at his wife to get the baby and run, Sam and Leia took off upstairs, not even caring about the risks of seeming like burglars. They raced into the room at the same time the demon was moving the mother up the wall.

Sam hesitated for a moment, but shot toward the Demon, who disappeared. The mother fell and moaned as Sam turned to her and Leia ran and grabbed the baby, sprinting out as hot flames reached at her back. Sam and the mother were right behind her as they rushed out and made it outside safely as the room exploded above them.

"Thank you," the mother said, taking back her baby. "Thank you so much for saving us."

Leia gave them a warm smile before turning toward where Dean was holding Sam back. The demon loomed overhead in the room still, his shadow smirking down at them. Sam was trying to rush back inside to kill it, but the moment Leia's hand slipped into his, he calmed down and admitted it was time for them to leave before the police got there and started asking questions.

They made it back to the motel room, and Leia immediately passed out. Checking to make sure she was out, Dean turned to his younger brother to ridicule him.

"What the hell was that, Sam? Were you just going to run into a burning building and go up against The Demon and hope everything turned out fine?" Dean asked in disbelief.

"That Demon killed Jess," Sam said.

"Yes, and it brought you back to Leia," Dean said. Sam sighed.

"I know, but that demon killed Mom, Dean. Do you not care?" Sam asked incredulously.

"If it means you losing your life, I hope we never find the damn thing!" Dean roared. He got closer to Sam and said to him, "You, me, Dad, and Leia- that's all we have now. I'm not willing to knock another person off of that list, are you?"

Sam pulled away, his eyes filling with tears as he realized how at risk they all were. He sighed and pulled a hand through his hair, trying to get the tears to calm down as he said, "Try Dad again, he has to answer."

Dean sighed and called the phone number again, and this time, someone answered. Meg's sardonic voice accused across the phone line, "You guys really messed up this time."

"Where is he?" Dean said as his heart dropped and Sam swiveled around and stared at him with fear in his eyes.

"You're never going to see your father again," Meg promised.

Then, she hung up.


	18. 18

Sam looked over at a fearful Dean worriedly, before Dean gained his composure and said softly, "Wake up Leia. We need a plan, fast, and she's the best at making a quick, foolproof plan."

Sam nodded and walked over to where Leia was asleep, gently nudging her awake and apologizing. He filled her in as she woke up quickly at the news that John was being held captive and was probably seriously injured. She bit her lip as Sam divulged into the story, and then Dean asked, "So, what do you think?"

"I think this warrants a visit to Bobby," she answered quickly, getting up and beginning to pack her stuff up again. "He's an expert on demons. He's got this giant book on all the different lore, and he's saved your dad's ass too many times to count."

"Last time I saw Bobby, he threatened to shoot my dad," Dean said.

"Did he threaten to shoot you?" Leia asked. Dean remained quiet, and Leia smiled. "Exactly. Bobby's just bitter because your daddy brought into this mess called hunting, and he doesn't think anybody should be forced into it- they should choose their own way."

"Well, he sounds like he has his head on straight," Sam commented, earning a dirty look from Dean.

"You boys better start packing. We've got a long drive ahead of us, and if we want to save your daddy, we better move fast," Leia said, already zipping up her bag as Sam and Dean left to go back up their own stuff. They all piled into the car, and Leia gave Dean basic directions, informing the two brothers that she was going to nap while they drove, and that Dean should wake her up whenever they reached the South Dakota border.

Leia took over driving, since she was much more familiar with the way to Bobby's house, and when they arrived at a ramshackle, run down house attached to a scrap yard, Sam was a little skeptical. Leia cooed and pet a hefty looking dog on the way in, walking up to the door and knocking as she yelled, "Honey, I'm home!"

The door opened and a man in his forties or fifties stepped out in a flannel shirt, trucker hat, and jeans. He was holding a rifle, but smiled and set the gun against the doorway as he embraced Leia, who was just positively beaming. Bobby looked behind her and said in his Southern twang, "I see you hooked up with the dogs."

"Someone's got to keep their asses alive," Leia said, walking into the house and making herself at home. Bobby turned back to the boys, losing the smile.

"So, which one of you is dating my girl?" He asked. Dean quickly pointed over his shoulder at Sam, and Bobby nodded. "Should've known. She never shut up about you when she was in California. Well, Sammy, if you're anything like your six-year-old self, I'd have to say she did a pretty good job."

"We've met before?" Sam asked. Bobby nodded.

"When you were still too young to go out hunting, your dad would drop you off at my house and you'd spend any amount of time hanging out here. Dean, on the other hand, would always go out with your dad, so I grew to kind of be the uncle that spoils you and not your brother," Bobby said, moving out of the doorway as the boys followed him in. "So, what has John gotten himself into this time?"

"He's gotten captured by some demons, and some pretty strong ones at that. We're not really used to fighting demons, so Leia said we should come to you. She said you're sort of an expert," Dean said as they came into a study room lined with bookcases holding ancient books. Dean whistled and Leia, who was cuddled up into a chair with a huge book in her lap, looked up.

"Ah, I see you found my demon Bible," Bobby said, nodding toward Leia, who smiled in response.

"Found? It was on your desk, like it always is," Leia said, turning her attention back to the book. She turned the page and went quiet again, and Sam smiled as he watched her focus in on the pages.

"So, why exactly did your daddy get captured?" Bobby asked, sitting behind his desk as the boys remained standing.

"We found the Colt." Bobby now looked fifteen more times attentive, and Sam continued talking. "They demanded that he give it to them, and he took a fake to them. They noticed it, and essentially kidnapped him. They're holding him hostage, but I know they won't kill him until they have the Colt."

"Which means one of the demons is probably looking for you," Bobby said slowly. He pointed up to the ceiling, and the boys looked up, finding an intricate drawing on the ceiling. "That's a devil's trap, boys. Get her to walk under it, and her powers are useless and she can't walk out of it."

"Well, that would've been nice to have earlier," Dean muttered just as the dog began growling. Leia looked up in confusion, having missed their conversation, while Bobby just turned to the boys and smiled.

"Looks like your demon's here," he said to them as the growling stopped and the door was busted down simultaneously. Meg stomped in and Sam quickly grabbed Leia by the hand, pulling her out of potential harm's way and pulling her behind him in case the devil's trap didn't work or something.

Meg growled, "Where's the Colt?"

"No kiss and hug to say hello? Meg, I'm offended," Dean gasped, putting his hand over his heart. She rolled her eyes and stepped closer to him, taking the bait as she put her hand out toward him.

"Give it to me, now. I'm tired of playing this little cat-and-mouse game. I'll tell you your dad's location in exchange for the Colt. I'm not promising his full health, but it's better than nothing, right?" Meg asked teasingly, stepping closer to the boys and right under the edge of the devil trap. She took one more step, and was fully immersed in the voodoo that could contain her as Dean allowed a victorious smile to cross over his face. Meg, beginning to get seriously pissed off, snapped at him, "What are you smiling at, pretty boy?"

"Your stupidity," Dean said, pointing up to the ceiling overhead where the devil trap was expertly drawn. She hissed and growled as she tried to run against the edge, only being thrown back. Dean and Sam held her down to a chair while Leia wrapped down her legs and arms, tying an expertly tight knot so she couldn't break free. When they were done, they pulled back and let Dean do the talking.

"So, where's our father, Meg?" Dean asked. She pressed her lips together in a sign of remaining quiet, and Dean sighed. "Well, you're making us do it the hard way. Sam?"

Sam nodded and opened an old journal Bobby had handed him, beginning to read the Latin fluently like it wasn't a dead language afterall. Leia had to squeeze the edge of the book case to behind her to keep her cool; the spell or whatever was the same one she had used to rid her brother of the demon that had possessed him.

Meg screamed and thrashed, her chair sliding around inside the devil's trap. She finally yelled, "Fine, fine!"

Sam stopped the spell and Dean looked expectantly at her as she said, "He's being kept in Missouri. I don't know exactly where."

"And The Demon, that killed our mother and my ex-girlfriend?" Sam asked.

"You think I know? Think again, Sammy," Meg said, sighing as she pulled against the restraints. "Now, will you be a doll and come untie me? I need to start running if I expect to get away from the demons that'll come after me once they realize I spoke."

"You think we're letting you go?" Dean asked, smirking. "Think again, Meggy. Sam, hit it."

"Woah, wait!" Bobby called, interrupting Sam. "You do realize she's an actual girl, that the exorcism may kill her. You guys threw her off of a building, right? She's a broken girl inside; the demon's the only thing keeping her together."

"We can't just leave it in her," Leia said quickly as Sam's fingers slid through hers. "Nobody deserves that, even if it means them dying. Can you imagine how it feels to completely lose control of your body to some evil entity and seeing through its eyes the massacres and murders and not being able to do anything about it? My brother suffered through that for so many years, it nearly drove him insane, and he told me to rid of it even if it meant killing him, he was that desperate. She needs to be put out of her pain, and if we can save her, that's even better, but it will be better for her than this if she dies."

Bobby pursed her lips as Leia nodded at Sam, signaling for him to continue the spell. Meg cussed at them and screamed until deep gray smoke came spewing out of her mouth, heading to the floor. It disappeared and Bobby and Leia rushed to untie the girl and check her pulse. Before Leia had a chance to press her fingers to the girl's freed wrist, however, she moaned.

"Oh, my God, she's still alive," Leia said. "Bobby, go call an ambulance. Dean, Sam, get her lying down, make sure her head is elevated."

Dean and Sam gently picked her up and laid her back down on the ground, resting her head against some books as she groaned. Meg, the human girl, met their eyes and smiled, saying, "Thank you, so much."

"I'm sorry to do this, ma'am, but I must know: was the demon telling the truth?" Dean asked as Leia sent him a reproachful look for his distasteful question. He shrugged as the girl coughed, and their attention turned back to her.

"She was. Sunrise," she choked out, her eyes shutting as her body went limp. Dean bit his lip and leant back on his heels, sighing.

"That was nearly no help," he commented as Leia sent him another look. Bobby re-entered.

"She dead?" Bobby asked as Leia nodded. Bobby sighed and said, "Balls. Well, you guys need to head out of here so when the police come, they don't ask questions. I'll put up a story and keep them off your tail."

"Thanks, Bobby," Leia said, kissing him on the cheek. "I'll see you soon, okay?"

Sam and Dean shook his hand as he nodded in Leia's general direction before turning back to the boys. He gave them a very serious expression and said, "Don't go do anything your daddy would do, now. I know we just met again and all, but I don't want to be attending either one of you boys' funerals. If you ever need anything, though, just let me know."

"Thanks for everything," Sam said, smiling and nodding at him as they all left and got back into the Impala. After a quick search, using Bobby's Wifi with her laptop, Leia was able to locate a building called Sunrise Apartments in Missouri. During the long drive there, they concocted the perfect plan to have the whole building evacuated so they could investigate- they'd set off the fire alarm and Sam and Dean, dressed as fire fighters, would infiltrate as Leia stood guard and stood ready in case John would need medical attention.

Getting to Missouri and inside the building was easy enough. Setting off the alarm took some time to make sure no one saw Sam purposely doing it, but after that, Dean was already waiting outside for him with firefighter suits as they re-entered the building and searched for John.

They finally found him tied up to a bed, bleeding and limp. They easily fought his few guards before entering the room and checking his vitals. He asked coherently where the Colt was as Sam gave him reassurance that they had it. Sam then helped him out of the bed as they struggled to get outside to the back where Leia was waiting. They got John into the back seat and as Dean turned around, a hand pressed into his head and slammed his face into the edge of the Impala's roof, sending him to the ground.

Sam turned on his heel, brandishing Holy Water as he threw it in the demon's face. Leia was struggling with her seat belt as the demon laid into Sam, who yelled at Leia to stay in the car. She finally ripped free of her seat belt the same moment Dean came to, pulling out the Colt and sending a bullet through the demon's head.

The demon fell to the ground and Leia finally got her seat belt free, helping Dean get Sam into the car, as he was nearly unconscious and bleeding. After Dean closed the door, Leia peeled away from the curb. They kept driving, eventually stopping at an old, hidden cabin Dean knew about it from his hunting days with his father, who was finally almost functional again. Leia helped Sam inside, while Dean helped their father.

Sam refused to go rest, instead insisting on staying up and preparing for whatever it was that was now coming to fight them. John went to the kitchen to wash up while Leia joined Dean on the couch, cleaning parts of his gun for him while Sam watched.

John walked back into the scene and looked over at Dean with a smile on his face. Dean, a little sketched out, met his father's eyes and asked, "What?"

"I'm just proud of you, is all," John said. Dean looked over at Leia, who looked a little bit concerned with the statement, just like Dean felt. John never complimented Dean on anything in fear of boosting his ego higher than it already was. Leia and Dean stood up at the same time, and now it was John's turn to look confused. "What?"

Sam had caught on by now; he pulled Leia behind him as Dean stood in front of both of them, asking, "Who are you, and where's our father?"

"What are you talking about, Dean?" John asked as he took a step forward, Dean and them taking a step back. "Dean, I am your father."

"Bull shit," Dean said, cocking the Colt. "Who, or what, are you?"

The John impersonator stood there for a few more heartbeats, staring at them with confusion on their face. But then, the expression melted into a smirk as John's eyes flashed yellow.

The Demon had taking possession of their father.


	19. 19

Sam was quick to make sure Leia was safely behind him, sending her a look that told her to stay back. Leia knew he was going to use his demon child powers despite her and Dean insisting that he never use them again, but at this point, she thought it was best.

"Get out of my dad," Dean growled, steadying the gun with his other hand as the anger made him shake. Sam stepped up next to his older brother to face the Demon together.

"What? No saying please? Maybe it's best I possess your father for a little bit and teach you two some manners," the Demon said. He threw his hands out as Sam and Dean flew to opposite sides of the room. The force made Dean drop the gun as Leia grabbed it and quickly slid it into her waistband as, predictably, the Demon sent her flying, too. She hit the wall, hard, as Sam made a gurgled noise and the Demon silenced him.

The Demon walked up to Leia and tipped her head up, smiling menacingly at her. "Ah, Leia Reed. The perfect specimen for my blood, if only you were a baby again. It was supposed to be you that night, but you had to go to the hospital with your daddy because you were sick. Your brother was much weaker, but so loyal... to you. That was his demise."

"Of course he was loyal to me. I'm his sister, I'm his family," Leia hissed back, slightly surprised the Demon didn't silence her, and completely surprised that she was supposed to be his victim, and not Luke.

"Of course, of course. But I saved him, Leia, don't you understand? Luke was pegged to die when he was only nine in that car accident that took your grandmother. But the demon blood rushing through his veins made him stronger, allowed him to live. And this is how you thank me, by threatening me with the Colt?" The Demon asked her tauntingly.

"You should've let him die in that accident," Leia said as she felt the Demon's hold on her loosening just a little bit. She spit in his face as he jumped back a bit and hissed, wrenching his hand as Leia felt something break in her chest. She screamed as the Demon let her go and she fell to the ground in pain. Sam and Dean both struggled to move, to scream, to do anything to help Leia, but the Demon turned to them and forgot about Leia entirely.

"Boys," he said, walking toward them. He pointed back to Leia and said, "I'm disappointed. You couldn't protect your girlfriend, your sister. I thought you guys were all about family and protecting your own."

"We are," Sam said, suddenly able to speak. "Not that you'll ever understand that."

"Oh, that's where you're wrong, Sammy boy. This, right here, isn't just about you. It's about my own children, my actual children." Dean and Sam both looked at the Demon in surprise, and he scoffed. "What, you think demons can't have children, too? Well, you killed both of mine- Meg, and Tom."

"Meg was your daughter?" Dean asked, snorting. "That explains a lot. She has your same sunny disposition."

"You'll regret the day you messed with my children," the Demon growled, losing his sarcasm for a little.

"I wanna know why. Before we wasted your kids, why was the reason you did all of this?" Sam asked.

"You mean why did I kill your mother, and then Jess?" The Demon asked. He took Sam's silence as an affirmation as he walked over to Sam, Leia still cringing in the corner due to the tight bind the Demon put over her, and he met eyes with Sam. "They got in the way of my plan. I couldn't have Mommy Hunter out to get me from the get-go, and I certainly couldn't have your imminent proposal to Jess go through so you could forget about me entirely."

Leia, although in pain, looked up from the floor in surprise. Even Dean looked a little shocked at the news that Sam was ready to go the distance with Jess when she died. For Sam, everything stopped in that moment as he saw a hurt pass through Leia that was worse than her broken ribs.

"Your daddy's in here right now, fighting me, trapped. It's nice to see someone in here cares about another one of you enough," the Demon said.

"Yeah, my dad's fighting for us. Where were you when I ganked your kids? Too bad cooking up a plan of vengeance against our family?" Dean asked. The Demon stared at Dean for a few moments before he looked down, then up again as Dean screamed in agony. Sam and Leia, despite their pain, both struggled against the Demon's hold and shouted Dean's name as if that would help. The Demon stared at Dean, smiling maliciously as Dean began to lose blood through his mouth and nose.

"Dad, please, don't let him kill me," Dean begged, sounding more vulnerable than Leia or Sam had ever heard him. "Dad, please."

"Stop it," they heard the Demon whisper. "Stop it!"

Suddenly, Leia felt the hold on her let lose as Sam sprung forward and grabbed the Colt, stepping between the Demon and where Leia and Dean were. John lost control of his meat suit again as the Demon came back and challenged Sam, saying, "Do it. Kill me, you kill your daddy."

"I know," Sam said shakily, unsure of what to do. He looked at Leia and she grabbed her leg. Sam understood immediately what she meant as he fired off a round into John's leg, sending the Demon out as John passed out. Dean fell to the floor, gasping in pain as Leia, although obviously hurting herself, ripped off her shirt and began to mop up his blood. She pulled his head into her lap as Sam ran over.

"Dean, I'm so sorry," Sam said through his tears. "I just..."

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean said as he coughed up more blood. "Go see if Dad is okay."

Sam looked up at Leia, who met his eyes and nodded, both telling him that she had Dean under control and that, despite the revelation that he was about to propose to someone else before Leia reappeared, they were okay.

Sam ran over to where his dad still lay unconscious, and he heard Leia shushing Dean as she took care of him. He lightly tapped his dad as he asked, "Dad?"

His dad's eyes flew open as he shouted, "Sammy! He's still inside me, I can't hold him much longer! You need to shoot me right now, in the heart, so we can end this once and for all!" Sam stared at him, cocking the gun as Leia and Dean both argued with him not to. He met his dad's eyes that filled with tears as he screamed, "Sammy! You do it right now!"

Sam hesitated a few moments too long as John let go of the demon that exited through his mouth in a cloud of screaming black smoke. Leia held Dean tightly as the smoke disappeared and Sam lowered the gun, John slamming his head disappointedly on the hardwood floor behind him. He started to get up as he said, "Sam..."

"John, now is not the time for you to yell at Sam for saving your life. You two need to get Dean to the car. I'm not sure I can lift him, but we need to get him to a hospital, fast. He's losing way too much blood," Leia said as she struggled to get up. Sam helped her up as she hissed and made it into the car, breathing heavily as she twisted her body to get in the back seat with Dean, who she pressed a wet washcloth to so his fever would stay down. John and Sam got into the front seats in silence as Sam stepped on it, racing toward the nearest hospital via Leia's uncanny sense of direction and map memorization.

"I'm disappointed in you, Sammy," John said when they were halfway there. "Why didn't you kill it?"

"There are more important things than killing the Demon, Dad, like keeping you alive," Sam said. John rolled his eyes and Leia braced herself for an argument.

"We've been hunting this Demon for how long, Sammy? And the one time we had it in our grasps, and you just let him slide on by. Do you know how long it's going to take to find him again? By the time we do, I'll probably be dead anyway. Why not spare many innocent lives before that?" John asked.

"Because Dad, the Demon..." Sam began, but he was cut off by a loud horn and the sound of a crash that sent the Impala flying sideways. Sam blacked out for all of five seconds until the Impala stopped rocking, and he woke up quickly to smell the sulfur. He grabbed the Colt shakily as the demon ripped off the door and looked at him.

"Touch them, and I shoot," Sam growled. He was worried nobody else was saying anything.

"You're saving that bullet for someone else, aren't you, sonny?" the demon asked. Sam cocked it and the demon stared at him before leaving the man's body, who immediately came to and began crying and apologizing as he ran off to his semi to call it in. Sam, on the other hand, called out to the people in the car.

"Dad?" No response. "Dean?" No response. "Leia?" Also, no response.

Sam was alone.


	20. 20

The man eventually ran back over, saying he had called it in and that they were going to send a MediVac to get them all out. He kept asking if there was anything he could do to help Sam, but Sam wasn't sure what to do himself. He had never been this helpless, and that was saying a lot. The three people who had always meant the most to him were all unconscious, and he couldn't do anything. He couldn't help but realize that if Leia or his dad at least was in his position, they'd be receiving some kind of medical care already, or if Dean was, he'd already have some elaborate plan figured out.

Sam spent the next hour or so not listening to the old man's apologies and stories about when he was a kid, but just looking at his brother, father, and girlfriend and praying to whatever higher power there was that they would get through this. His tears filled up his eyes, but stayed behind his eyelid.

Finally, he heard the helicopter and managed to get out of the car with the help of the old man. They landed and immediately pulled Sam to a stretcher, strapping him down as he suddenly became full of life and struggled against them to see just how bad his loved ones were. He asked the medical personnel if they'd be okay, if they'd live, but no one told him anything as someone shot something into his arm and he passed out.

When he woke up, he was in a hospital bed. He quickly jumped before a nurse held him down and said, "Mr. McGillyhully, please!"

Sam finally calmed down as it took a few seconds for him to realize the girl was talking to him under his guise of Edward McGillyhully, one of his dad's great ideas. Sam looked over at the nurse and grabbed her tightly by the arm, rasping out, "The other three people I was with..."

"The older man was the least hurt, but they're all still unconscious. He and the girl were both responsive, but your brother had some additional injuries we can't attribute to the crash. Did something happen before you guys got in the crash?" The nurse asked curiously. Sam lied and shook his head as the nurse nodded and wrote it down. "Has he had any other health complications recently?"

"Not that I've been aware of," Sam said. The nurse nodded and smiled at him, then placed Sam's records back on the end of the bed.

"Let me go grab your doctor real quick and get you out of this bed so you can see everybody else. Your injuries were minor- a concussion, some minor contusions, and you received four stitches on your head at your hairline. You'll have to go to your regular doctor within a week to go get those removed, but other than that, you should be free to go," the nurse said. Sam nodded and thanked her as she left the room, then came back with a doctor who discharged Sam. Sam went ahead and paid for everybody else's hospital bills, going with the idea that he and Leia were fiancees so they'd allow for him to pay for it.

Once he was done paying, he turned back to face the rooms and struggled on which to go visit first. His feet went instinctively toward Dean's room, as the nurse had said he was suffering the most. When Sam walked inside, the last thing he expected was what he got. His older brother, who had been this symbol of strength for Sam ever since he could remember, was hooked up to ever possible machine they could conjure: a respirator, a feeding tube, a pump coming out of his stomach. Sam crumpled into the seat beside Dean's bed, then took his hand.

"I'm so sorry, Dean. I'm sorry I couldn't use my psychic powers to keep the demon away from you, I'm sorry we got hit by that truck, and I'm sorry that all of this is happening to you when it should be happening to me," Sam said, his tears finally flowing over his eyelids. He sat there in silence for a few moments, looking at his brother's face and listening to his heart monitor.

"Mr. McGillyhully, your father is awake," a nurse said as Sam left Dean to go visit his dad, who was a little scratched and banged up, but, overall, still looked pretty good considering. Sam received his insurance card and a grocery list to give to Bobby before heading out to meet Bobby at the impound lot, where the Impala was folded as if a god had tried to make it into a paper airplane. After convincing Bobby to tow it back for when Dean woke up so he could work on it, and finding out from Bobby that the ingredients his dad had requested were for summoning a demon and not protection from a demon, a very angry Sam returned to the hospital, where an argument with his father commenced, interrupted by only the fact that a nurse came in and told him Leia was awake.

Sam rushed to Leia's room, leaving his argument with John open-ended as he walked in to see just how bad off she was. A nurse was dressing a surgery wound she had over her ribs where they had to go in and remove a rib splinter from her lung, and then had to fix the lung. Despite the numerous stitches, bruises, and cuts Leia had on her, she still smiled brilliantly at Sam when he walked in and the nurse left to give them some privacy.

"Hey, baby," Leia said, leaning up to kiss him before Sam sat down to hold her hand. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, really," Sam insisted after Leia gave him a doubtful look.

"You have stitches on your head, Sam. If they're anything like one set of mine, you're in some level of discomfort," Leia said, adjusting herself and squeezing Sam's hand in pain as she did so.

"It's nothing in comparison to what you three are going through," Sam said, kissing her hand as Leia smiled again at him.

"How is everybody else?" She asked solemnly. Sam looked down at her hand, and she asked again, "Sam?"

"My dad's awake. He's better off than you are- no major surgery, only a few sets of stitches. Dean, on the other hand... he probably would've been damaged to the same extent you were after the accident, but because of the internal bleeding the Demon caused, he's unresponsive and in a coma," Sam said. Leia reached up to Sam's face and cradled it in her hand, causing him to meet her eyes.

"Hey, you know Dean. He'll fight through this, like he does everything else, okay?" Leia asked. Sam sighed and nodded as Leia said, "Now, can you go give me insurance to the doctor so I can get signed out? I'm so ready to get into some real clothes."

Sam chuckled and nodded, leaving as he got her doctor, explained the insurance situation and how Sam was paying for her, and Leia was quickly discharged after the doctor walked her through her medication and give her the same stitch speech Sam's had given him. Sam helped her get dressed, being very careful with her numerous stitches, bruises, and cuts as he kissed her whenever and wherever he got the chance, just thankful that she was alive. If Dean wasn't going to make it, only Leia could possibly pull Sam out of the funk he'd inevitably fall into.

After Leia and Sam exited the room, John was waiting for them with a smile and arms wide open. He hugged Leia tenderly as she winced, then laughed and hugged him back. Leia pulled away and asked, "Why so happy?"

"Dean's awake," John said. Sam and Leia stared at him uncomprehendingly before they both took off running, rushing in to see Dean looking extremely good considering. Something seemed off about Dean's sudden resurrection, especially considering Sam said he had contacted Dean during his slumber, and Dean told him there was a Reaper in the hospital after him. Leia laughed it off, but something still nagged her.

Dean's stomach gave a ridiculous roar as Leia laughed and said, "I'm going to get you some food, okay?"

"Please find me a hamburger, then I'll gladly take you away from Sam," Dean begged as Leia laughed, kissing him on the forehead, touching John's bicep, and then squeezing Sam's hand and kissing him on the way out. John turned to his two boys and smiled.

"I understand why you did what you did, Sam. I'm sorry I freaked out. I'm not mad- I'm proud. I've been working like hell to keep this family, and almost threw that away," John said, giving his youngest son a hug. A surprised Sam hugged him back as John pulled away and said, "I love you, son."

"I know, Dad," Sam said in slight confusion. Even Dean was a bit confused.

"That being said, could you possibly go get some caffeine for me? I'm feeling just a bit drained," John said. Sam nodded and left like the obedient son he was as John turned back to Dean quickly.

"We only have a little bit of time," John said, mostly to himself.

"What are you talking about, Dad?" Dean asked in outright confusion now.

"I just want to talk to you alone," John said, pulling over a chair to the side of Dean's bed and meeting his eyes. "I just want you to know how proud I am of you. I'm so sorry that through my disappearance both as a father in your childhood and more recently, the burden of this family has always fallen to your shoulders. But you've always taken it with stride, and nothing can make me happier."

"Dad, are you planning to bolt again?" Dean asked. John smiled and shook his head.

"I plan on always being with you guys from here on out," John promised. "There is one last thing I have to tell you before the lovebirds get back, though, and you can't tell either of them. Deal?"

Dean nodded as John leant forward and whispered in his ear the last thing Dean ever thought he'd hear leave his Dad's mouth.

Meanwhile, Leia was walking back to Dean's room with a tray of food, kind of in her own world before something made her bounce out of it.

"Help! Help! Someone- nurse, doctor, anybody!" Leia heard Sam yelling. She took off racing towards Dean's room, but found that his room was empty besides Dean himself, who was sitting in his bed and looking curiously at her. They heard the PA click on and Leia's heart dropped.

"Code blue, room 347. Code blue, room 347."

"Dad?!" Dean yelled as Leia helped him out of bed, letting him lean on her as they shuffled to John's room. Dean was showing surprising strength- a miracle, they claimed- as they sped up to a near run. They entered and saw nurses using the Jaws of Life, shoving their hands in chest compressions, and counting the time between the two. Leia grabbed Sam's hand and he turned to her, tears filling his eyes and slipping over. Dean asked, "What the hell happened?!"

"I... I went to go get him coffee... like he asked... and I saw... he was just on the ground," Sam said shakily. Dean looked at Leia worriedly as she squeezed the Winchester boys' hands on either side.

Finally, they all knew it was too late. The doctor recorded his time of death, and that was it. They cleared out his body and wheeled it to the morgue. They took Dean away for some more testing, leaving Sam and Leia alone in the room. Sam touched the bed, then smelt his fingertips. Leia could see the anger rising up in him.

"Sam," she said slowly, standing up. "What's... ?"

"Sulfur. Really strong sulfur, the kind of sulfur I smelt before when..." He didn't have to finish; Leia knew. The pit that had begun in her stomach opened up wide. She leapt up from her seat and grabbed his forearms, trying to calm him down. He pushed past her and stomped out of the room, and she sighed, thinking,

Let the vengeance hunt begin.


	21. 21

After finding Sam post-storm out, Dean drove him and Leia back to Bobby's house, where they plotted a way to steal John's body out of the morgue that night so they could give him a hunter's funeral. Although both boys seemed to be in a comatose state- Sam with his silence, and Dean with his lack of emotions besides anger- Leia and Bobby were able to figure out a way to get John's body and the firewood needed for the pyre.

That night, they set fire to John's body, then collected the ashes, setting them aside in Bobby's bunker so no demon or monster could ever get to them. John Winchester was going to rest in peace for good.

Sam and Leia took one of Bobby's extra bedrooms for themselves. Although they fell asleep with Sam's arms around her waist, Leia found Sam was missing in the middle of the night when she woke up to use the restroom. She grabbed her gun out of the nightstand drawer and slowly slunk downstairs in just her shorts and tank top, the South Dakota cold biting at her this time of year even though she was within the house.

She shook her head to clear it and continued to sneak down the stairs.

When she stepped into the den, she found Sam on the couch, holding Bobby's Demon Bible. She sighed and put her gun down on the table, the clattering noise making Sam jump and look at her. She walked over to him as he sighed as well, obviously caught, as he spread his legs and she crawled between them, sitting properly as he put his hands on her waist.

"What are you doing up?" She asked, as if she didn't already know.

"I need to figure out what we're up against, so we can beat it. These demons aren't going to get away with killing my father," Sam said confidently. Leia did the one thing she could do to keep Sam under control; she grabbed his face and kissed him gently. He pulled her in closer to him as she wound her arms around his neck, pulling away with a soft smile.

"Sammy, I love you, and I loved your father like he was my own. While I agree that we need to start pouring out all our resources in order to get the Demon that did this to your dad, I also think that you need sleep to do that. Please, come back to bed," Leia said, gently begging. Sam sighed, but Leia stood up from the couch and pulled him up with her hand linked in his, leading him back to the bedroom.

When they woke up the next morning, Leia made good on her promise: they started the search for how to defeat the demon that had killed John. While Leia, Bobby, and Sam hit the books, Dean went outside to work on the completely destroyed Impala, the one last thing he felt he had to connect him to John. In fear of being hit by Dean or, in Leia's case, yelled at, nobody bothered him.

"Maybe your father was onto something," Bobby brainstormed. "Maybe he had some contacts that might know more."

"I could check his phone," Sam suggested, slipping it out of his pocket. Leia frowned, concerned with the fact that Sam was holding his dead father's phone in his jean pocket, but said nothing. Maybe he had a deeper meaning for having it, besides holding onto it like Dean was practically clutching to the already-dead Impala.

"Check the voicemails, he might've saved something important," Bobby said. Sam put the cell phone down on the middle of the table and put it on speaker so Bobby and Leia could hear everything. There were a few messages about demon appearances due to weather and livestock kills, and some more desperate calls for help regarding lesser monsters. Finally, one piqued Bobby's attention, at least.

"Her name is Ellen," Bobby told them, lying out a road map. He pointed to a small town and said, "She owns Harvelle's Roadhouse. It's a hunter joint where people go to relax between jobs and collect information on new ones. She's an old friend of your Daddy and I's. I think she deserves to hear that he is no longer with us."

"And you think we should travel all the way there to tell her face-to-face?" Dean asked in his typical sarcastic way. Bobby nodded, and Dean narrowed his eyes. "Why can't you do it?"

"I think it'd be better coming from you boys," Bobby said, obviously hiding something. Leia could see Dean was on the verge of starting an argument with Bobby, which she knew never ended well considering they were both stubborn hotheads. She stepped between them instead, even going far enough to put a hand on Dean's chest, as she pushed him back from Bobby.

"I don't think it would hurt for us to go on a small roadtrip, get back in the swing of things," Leia said. Dean looked like he was going to argue with her, but seemed to decide against it at the last minute. He sighed and walked away, but Leia knew he was in.

In an hour's time, they had the car all packed up and ready to go as they made the trip to the Roadhouse. When they arrived, Leia could sense that Dean was coming back to himself, being an old haunt like this where alcohol and a pretty, tiny blonde girl walked up to them the moment they stepped inside. He smirked at her and hit on her, but she denied him, and Leia saw him sink.

"Can we see Ellen?" Leia asked before Dean had a chance to turn around and walk back out the door. The blonde girl looked at her in surprise and Leia asked carefully, "Ellen Harvelle is here, right?"

"Yeah, of course, it's just... that's my mom," the girl said as she looked at Leia, Sam, and Dean, obviously trying to judge them by the fact that her eyes were narrowed in suspicion. "Who's asking for her?"

"I'm Leia, this is Sam and Dean."

The girl looked like she wanted to throw up. She turned on her heel and stomped away without a single word, going behind the bar and disappearing into a back room. Leia, Sam, and Dean stood in surprise as they expected her to come back, but she did not. Leia took a few steps forward, and several eyes in the bar turned to look at her, freshmeat in a bar usually frequented by men stuck somewhere between lumberjacks and truck drivers. Sam was quick to walk up beside her and grab her hand to claim her, and Dean stood to her other side protectively.

They heard a gun cock behind them and turned to find a motherly looking woman hiding behind the bar with her shotgun barrel pointed at them. Leia quickly dropped Sam's hand and put her own up in the air, saying, "Ellen?"

"Who's asking?" The woman asked in a Southern drawl. The blonde girl came out of the backroom with her own shotgun pointed at their party.

"My name is Leia. This is my boyfriend, Sam, and his brother, Dean," Leia said carefully, softly. All the hunters in the bar seemed on the edge of their seats, obviously ready to defend Ellen if need be- against what, Leia didn't know.

"Oh, I know who they are," Ellen said nastily. "Everybody knows the Winchesters."

"Bobby Singer sent us," Leia said. "John Winchester, he's... he's dead."

There were gasps and murmurs around the bar. Ellen lost her tough face and put down her shotgun; it seemed her daughter unwillingly followed suit. Ellen met eyes with each of the three of them before saying, "Well, what are you waiting for? Come into the back so we can talk privately."

Dean and Sam sandwiched Leia between them as they followed Ellen into the house part of the Roadhouse, obviously where she lived with her daughter. They made themselves comfortable as Ellen brought them beers and a water for Leia, and then sat down, saying, "What monster got him?"

"Demon," Dean said just as sharply. Leia rested a hand on his knee, then smiled at Ellen warmly.

"We're sorry to come in unannounced, but you left a call on John Winchester's phone a while back. Bobby Singer told us that we should probably come tell you the news of his death, face-to-face," Leia said.

"Well, I'm glad ol' Bobby is still thinking of me," Ellen said with a smile of her own. "I'm sorry to have pointed my gun at you like that. John and I didn't exactly split on good terms."

"Split?" Sam asked curiously. Ellen was quick to shake her head.

"Your Daddy and I were never romantically intertwined. He used to pair up with my husband on jobs sometimes, and my husband ended up getting killed by a Wendigo. I blamed John for years, and although I regret the harsh words I said to him, I still don't think, to this day, I could ever fully forgive him. That shouldn't extend to you two boys as well," Ellen said, leaning back. "I've heard much about you two boys, scouring the country and killing monsters. You're assumed to be professionals of this line."

Dean shrugged. "We've killed our share."

"Well, I have a job for you, if you want it. A friend of mine lives in Wisconsin, says that there have been some weird killings and disappearances among children. You interested?" Ellen asked. Dean nodded vehemently, while Sam took a moment to decide. Ellen gave them a piece of paper, telling them, "This is the place and my contact."

Sam and Dean stood up to leave, but Leia stayed seated. Sam put a hand on her shoulder and asked gently, "You coming?"

Leia smiled and shook her head, saying, "I think I'll stay here for a while, if Ellen allows me to. I'm interested in the roadhouse, and I think I just need to take a break for a while anyway. It wouldn't hurt to do it in a place I knew I was safe."

Sam looked at his girlfriend in concern, noting for the first time the circles under her eyes and the way the corners of her mouth didn't stretch as far as they used to. He nodded, agreeing as he kissed her and said goodbye. Leia turned back to Ellen, who raised both of her eyebrows questioningly, reading through Leia as most mothers did.

"What's going on with you?" Ellen asked. Leia sighed.

"Ever since the boys' death, I've noticed both of them have started heading downhill emotionally. Dean is still in denial- like, he'll say he knows his dad has died, but he still hasn't registered it, which means he can't deal with it properly. Sam, on the other hand, is too emotional about it, and is getting frustrated with Dean for hardly recognizing the fact that their father died." Leia rubbed her face, pulling back her hair. "I just... I can't go on another job with them and pretend like everything is okay, when it isn't."

"What you need, is a distraction. Ash!" Ellen called. Leia was quick to shake her head.

"No, no, I love Sam..."

Ellen laughed as an awkward kid busted into a room with a trucker hat and a mullet, almost too skinny to keep his jeans on. Ellen's eyes danced as she said to Leia, "This is Ash, my son. I was just thinking, if the rumors are true, that the two of you could perhaps find an intellectual way to spend your time. Perhaps you could help him create something to figure out a way to track demons or something."

"Demons?" Ash asked, practically pulling Leia out of her chair by the hand. "Oh, this is awesome. Come on, you gotta tell me all you know."

And then, Ash locked the door behind them as Leia began spilling into the tale of the Yellow-Eyed Demon.


	22. 22

When the guys returned from killing the Rakshsa they found waiting for them in Wisconsin, they found Ash and Leia doing geek-talk in front of a computer system. Leia turned away from it with a huge smile as she slipped her arms around Sam's neck, leaning up to kiss him and welcome him home.

Dean cleared his throat awkwardly and asked, "What is this, Lei?"

"Oh, well, first off, this is Ash, Ellen's son. He's somewhat of a genius, and we came up with this while you were gone," Leia said, pulling up a screen on the main desktop. Sam and Dean looked over her shoulder at the three different screens that popped up: electrical outings, cow slayings, and horrible storms, all with a city name. Some were highlighted green or yellow, meaning they were occurring in the same cities as one or two of the other signs.

"Is this a demon tracking system?" Sam asked, finally catching on. Leia nodded, obviously elated that her hard work was being appreciated by both of the Winchester brothers. "Leia, this is amazing."

"Ash said he hates hunting, so he can sit here and monitor it and point us to places to go. So far, there's nothing worth writing to, but I've been doing some research on each of these towns, and one with cattle mutilations also has a few unsolved murders if you guys want to go check it out," Leia said, holding up a paper with the city name on it. Dean snatched it out of her hands almost greedily.

"Let's go," he told Leia and Sam. Sam gave Leia an apologetic look, but she had already lost her smile as she just sighed and shook her head, slipping her hand in Sam's. They said goodbye to the Harvelles, and made their way back to the Impala, driving all the way to Red Lodge, Montana. The ride was mostly a silent one; Leia slept most of the way due to the fact that she and Ash had been working non-stop on the demon detector, and Sam and Dean were in an awkward silence ever since Sam called out Dean for being closed up about their father's death.

When they arrived in Red Lodge, Sam turned around in his seat and gently shook Leia awake. After settling into their motel room, Sam could see that his girlfriend still wasn't up to her normal 100%. He told her gently, "We were going to head to the sheriff's office to see if we could get an official report and a few answers from there. It might be kind of suspicious if three FBI agents or journalists or whomever we pretend to act like show up to investigate. Do you want to sit this one out and sleep a little bit more?"

Leia looked like she was going to disagree, but then she somehow read through Sam as she smiled, putting her hand over his on top of the mattress. She told him, "I know when I'm not wanted. You need to talk to Dean, don't you?"

Sam shot a look over his shoulder, but his older brother had gone back out to the Impala to grab a few things. He turned back to his girlfriend and sighed, admitting, "I am worried about him."

Moving her hand up to cradle his face, Leia smiled so gently, so motherly at him that Sam realized that this peacefulness is what ultimately attracted Sam. He had to smile back as she told him, "Just don't kill him, okay? He's useful to have around… sometimes."

Sam had to laugh at Leia's fake unwillingness to claim that she cared for Dean's sanity almost as much as Sam did. Inside, she was elated that Sam was finally having a word with him about it. Considering she hadn't been the one to lose her father and idol, she didn't think it was really her room to say much to Dean regarding his brusque behavior of late.

Dean walked in, wearing a suit as he said to Sam, "Ready?"

Getting up from the bed, Sam stripped right in front of the both of them, changing into his suit. Leia pretended that she was disinterested, but she secretly watched her boyfriend disrobe over the edge of the magazine she pretended to be invested in. Within a few minutes, Sam was kissing Leia goodbye as they exited the motel and drove to the station.

She got a call a few hours later from the guys as dusk began to fall. They claimed they were heading on over to the morgue to examine the corpse, and also revealed that they now had to be careful because the sheriff found out they were fake journalists after they spouted off two different newspaper rooms they supposedly belonged to. Normally, a mix up like this would cause Leia to laugh, but at that moment in time, it just cemented the fact that Sam and Dean, who usually ran on a similar frequency, were on different wavelengths entirely.

She met up with the guys at the morgue, using a little bit of flirting to work her way to the back room. When she got back there, the Winchester brothers turned to look at her, ready to explain their presence, but they relaxed when they saw it was her. Slipping on a pair of latex gloves, she asked them, "What do we have here?"

"The head of one of the most recently decapitated," Dean said as Leia sided up next to him and saw that they were, indeed, staring at a head in a box. He lifted one of the girl's lips and said, "The only weird thing we've seen besides the… well, separated head, is the fact that her gums are swollen. So, I pushed and found she has a fang."

"A vampire?" Leia asked in surprise. "Usually vampire hunters are a little more careful about disposing the bodies, aren't they?"

"In my experience, yes," Sam answered this time. "We wanted to take out her tooth, but…"

He trailed off, and when Leia looked up, she could see both the Winchester boys had sick looking expression on their faces. She rolled her eyes, grabbing the box from in front of Dean and pulling it so instead, she was staring down at the girl.

"You guys are fucking babies," Leia said, rolling her eyes as she snapped the rubber gloves at the wrist before sticking her hand into the girl's mouth. She rummaged around while Dean looked like he was going to puke, albeit impressed.

"Lei, where'd you learn to keep a strong stomach like that?" Dean asked as Leia took a scalpel and cut open the girl's gums.

"I've been doing this for a long time. It's just something you learn with experience. I thought you'd be used to it; you've been doing this far longer than I have," Leia said as she pulled something out of the gum. The sound of it was enough to make Dean gag. She laughed and said, "You are such a wimp sometimes, dude."

"Okay, okay," Sam said, not really sure how much insulting Dean could take at the time considering he was still obviously reeling from their father's death. "Let's just focus on the task at hand here, okay? So, why'd you cut out one of her teeth?"

"If I can get to a microscope, I can look at the decay of the tooth. Depending on that, I can tell when the last time she drank blood was," Leia said, almost off in her own little world as she tried to study the tooth with her bare eye. When she bothered to look away from it, she was met by both guys with curious and surprised looks. She stared back at them and said, "What? I've had my share of companions along this hunting road, and many of them have been specialists in one creature or another. I spent nearly three months with a vampire specialist."

"You make it sound like a casual internship," Sam commented, taking the tooth from Leia and sliding it into his coat pocket. "I think I saw a high school nearby. We could probably slide in, take one of their lab microscopes or just borrow it for a few minutes."

"Sounds good to me," Leia said as they exited from the morgue, making it back to the car. The moment they sat down, she sighed and said to the guys, "I could really go for a beer right now."

Sam chuckled. "That's my girl."

"Well, we've got to head to a bar and see if the vamps frequent there, figure out if we got a nest or not," Dean said as he took a U-turn out of the hospital parking lot and made his way to the nearest bar. When they went in, Leia went off to find some guy to flirt with and pump for information while Sam and Dean went to the bar to bribe the bartender.

Within minutes, Leia saw Sam and Dean leave the bar. Sam met her eyes and shook her head, signifying that she shouldn't follow them out. She continued following her leads with the drunk guy she was talking to, who was describing a group of hippies who lived out on a farm. When she realized she was going to get nowhere with his help, she exited the bar. She was surprised to see the brothers standing by an old red car, casually talking to the driver.

As she made her way over, Sam turned to her and shook his head. She could sense he was annoyed even though she was still about thirty feet away. Dean, on the other hand, was talking with the driver with much enthusiasm voice that it surprised Leia. The moment she stepped up, Dean was glad to make introductions, saying, "Leia, this is Gordon. He's a vampire hunter."

"As great as it is to meet you, I've really got to get going. I need to finish off this clan. I will definitely call you guys if I need any help, and if not, I'll catch you all on the flip side," Gordon said as he shut his door and raced away. Leia gaped at Sam and Dean, not sure how to find the words to depict her thoughts.

"Surprised we're not grasping control from him?" Dean asked sarcastically. Leia nodded, and Dean shook his head. "You're not the only one. Guy talks a good game. We'll follow him, though. I don't think he really gets what he's getting himself into."

Leia smiled at Dean, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek as she told him, "Now, that's the Dean I know and love."

They all piled back into the Impala and tailed Gordon until he got to a shipyard. They snuck in behind him and watched as he took on a vampire. There was no denying that the guy was a good fighter, but apparently, he wasn't good enough as the strong and bulky vampire took him down and threatened to cut part of his body off with a nearby whirring machine. It was at that moment that Leia and the Winchesters decided to intercede. As Sam pulled Gordon out from underneath the machine, Dean and Leia took on the vampire with fists and knives. Dean was the one to finally bring the vampire down, putting him underneath the machine instead as his head came clean off his shoulders.

Looking over at them, now spattered with blood, Leia grabbed Sam's hand in fear and concern for the calm look on Dean's face. Gordon, however, seemed to be elated by the massacre; he grinned at Dean, then at Sam and Leia, as he told them, "Guess I owe you all that drink, now?"

Within minutes, they were back at the bar they had originally met Gordon at, drinking some beers as Dean and Gordon talked about how black and white everything in hunting was. Sam, always unable to mask his distaste of things, had a scowl on his face that didn't go unnoticed by anyone at the table, especially Leia. After a few minutes of almost straight glaring at Gordon, Leia finally said, "I'm getting really tired. Sam, I think it's about time we head back."

Gordon, the pig that he was, whistled. "Maybe if you finally get some, Sammy, you'll lighten up a little bit."

Sam looked furious, but all he said was, "Only they can call me Sammy."

Gordon whistled again, but this one was a low one that signified he thought Sam was overreacting. Before Sam could truly overreact, Leia grabbed him by the arm and took him out of the bar, walking home with him in silence. She knew better than to berate or question him; both would only frustrate him more. Sam was one of those people who had to think things through before he could really solve them.

When they finally made it back to the motel, Sam revealed he was going to keep walking around to clear his head. After a kiss and a goodnight wish, Leia returned to the motel room and immediately flopped onto her bed. What felt like seconds later, but she knew to be somewhere nearer hours, she heard the motel door open and two deep voices enter the room.

"Lei," Dean said, gently shaking her awake. She moaned as Gordon smirked, and Dean shook her a little bit more. "Leia, we've got a guest."

She rolled over quickly, but when she saw it was Gordon, she sighed and laid back down. She greeted him, but then turned to Dean as she told him, "If you want to party here, go get another room. I'm trying to sleep off the stress you and your brother's tension brings me."

"Okay, Mom," Dean said, earning a deathly glare from Leia. He put up his hands defensively and asked, "Speaking of him... where is he?"

"Sam?" Leia asked, attentive now as she sat up. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she shrugged and told Dean, "He probably went on a walk. Unlike you, he likes to think things out and relax rather than keep it all inside and explode unpredictably."

Dean ignored the jibe, and turned back to Gordon as they laid out a map on the table by the window. Leia slowly woke up, knowing she wouldn't get any sleep for the rest of the night now that Dean was back and Sam was still awake, somewhere. Once he got home, she knew it would erupt into a fight.

Sure enough, the moment that Sam returned from his walk, he saw his brother and tersely said, "Dean, can I talk to you outside, please?"

"Anything you want to say in front of me, you can say in front of Gordon," Dean said. Leia rolled her eyes, stretching up from the bed as she grabbed Dean by the ear and he whined all the while she led him out of the hotel room door. She let him go once they reached a safe distance from the hotel room, and Dean rubbed his ear as he commented to Leia sorely, "You know, I thought if I let you two go skipping off to the hotel room by yourselves, you'd both have gotten laid and lightened up a little bit. I seem to have been wrong."

Leia glared at him while Sam simply said, "Dean, stop playing around. We've got a problem."

"Yeah we do," Dean said, scoffing. "Why else do you think we're here, Sammy? Decapitations, mutilated cattle, and now the revelation of a vampire nest... I'm not sure I'm getting what's so secretive."

"They're not volatile." After both Dean and Leia gave him confused looks, Sam expanded on his previous statement by saying, "The vampires are vegetarian. They only feed on animal blood. They just kidnapped me from outside the hotel and took me to their farm. I met their leader, Lenore, and..."

Dean swiped his hand in front of him to cut off his younger brother. "Let's go back to the idea of vegetarian vampires. Are you insane, Sam? There's no way that they're alive. Animal blood has got to be poisonous or not nearly as fulfilling, and nobody would choose that life. At least human vegetarians claim that they are incapable of eating meat or that it is healthier, but vegetarian vamps would get nothing out of drinking animal blood over human blood."

"I'm telling you, Dean. They had me all tied up and ready to bleed out, but they didn't even scratch me," Sam claimed. Leia looked him over quickly, and noted that it was a true statement. As far as she could see, Sam had not been harmed. It was like he hadn't been kidnapped at all.

Dean chuckled and rolled his eyes. "Did you not hear what we were saying later? Hunting is black and white. There are monsters, and we kill them. There is no gray area where vegetarian vampires would live, because they don't exist. I'm sure that Gordon would agree with me."

Now Sam chuckled. "Oh, yeah, because Gordon knows everything about vampires."

"He sure knows a lot hell than the three of us do. That's all he hunts, so I bet he's found out more in the last few years hunting a ton of them than we have in the last several years, hunting only a few." Sam chuckled and shook his head again, and Dean, now annoyed, asked impatiently, "What?"

"It's just so pathetic," Sam said, giving his brother what was almost a sardonically sad look.

"What is?" Dean asked impatiently.

"The fact that you're trying to use Gordon as a replacement for Dad." Dean blinked at Sam for a few seconds, then shook his head. Sam laughed again and roared, suddenly going from 0 to 60 in a few seconds, as he shouted at Dean, "I know you're not okay! Stop telling me you're okay! Stop bull-shitting me, Dean!"

With a chuckle and a shake of his head, Dean paused.

Before swinging his fist into Sam's face.


	23. 23

"Woah, woah, woah!" Leia yelled, swinging in between the two of them. She put a hand back and touched Sam's chest, then put a restricting one on Dean's. "No need for punches to be exchanged, alright? We've got to go catch up with Gordon before he does something to those somehow innocent vampires."

"You're siding with them?" Dean asked in surprise. Leia rolled her eyes.

"I'm sorry I'm not some blind, ignorant asshole who can't see past the film that your father's death put over your eyes, but even if that were not the case, I'd still check Sam's claim. He wouldn't be making it up unnecessarily, and you know that just as well as I do," Leia said. Dean laughed and rolled his eyes.

"Un-fucking-believable. The only reason you ever side with him because you're in love with him," Dean said. Sam started forward, but Leia chuckled and pushed him back. She whirled her head around to glare at Dean, instead.

"I'm currently holding back your brother and myself from punching you. If you want to keep your pretty face, you better choose your next words carefully," she growled threateningly, her arm still pushing against Sam's chest. Dean's eyes narrowed, but he pressed his lips together as if to keep the insults and jabs inside his body, so Leia finally lowered her arm from Sam's chest.

"You know I'm right," Sam said, pursing his lips.

"Do I think you're right about vegetarian vampires existing? Surprisingly, no. But I know you won't let it go until we go check out the nest, so I guess I'll go get the car warmed up," Dean said, beginning to leave the hotel room.

Sam started after his brother, saying, "Dean, you know that isn't what I..."

Putting another arm on his chest to bar against his exit, Leia shook her head at Sam. "Just let him go. Obviously he's still not ready."

"Well, I'm tired of waiting," Sam said, pushing back his hair in exasperation. "I'm ready to move on, but I can't do so if Dean is acting like this dead weight that is keeping me sunk in and attached to the past."

"I know," Leia said, chewing on the inside of her cheek as her eyes darted over quickly to where Dean was waiting for them in the driver's seat. "But I think he still needs some more space, at least. He idolized your dad, Sammy, and while I know you did, too, he never had the strength to pull away and breathe like you did."

Sam sighed as they walked to the Impala, his callused hand holding back the seat as Leia clambered into the back. She stretched out her long legs across the back seats, her head lying against the passenger side window as Sam closed the door behind him and Dean started up the car. "Where are we headed?"

"I memorized the turns. Just keep on your toes, I'll let you know," Sam said as Dean did as he said, driving with even the radio off. After about ten minutes, Leia couldn't stand being choked by the tension any longer.

"Wait, okay, so was that punch transferrable? Because I feel like I, out of any of us, could really use a punch-Dean-in-the-face-for-free card in the future," Leia said, earning an annoyed look from Dean in the rearview mirror. She gave him a winning smile and said, "When my weapon of choice- words- fails, all I got left is my knuckles, Deanie."

"Nobody's punching anybody anymore," Sam said in his fatherly tone of voice, rubbing his jaw as to remind them why it was a bad idea to hit each other, "unless it's a monster. Or Gordon."

Dean didn't respond to Sam's quip about his new fast friend, but Leia could see his grip tighten on the steering wheel so his knuckles turned white. Leia's teeth found the inner side of her cheek again, and her eyes rested on Dean with concern. Sam's eyes, however, found her reflection in the rearview mirror, and his own expression matched hers; he didn't want her worrying about his older brother. It wash is job to worry about them both so they didn't have to worry about each other.

They pulled up to the barn house Sam remember being taken to by Lenore and her vamp lover earlier. Sam held the seat for Leia again while Dean pulled a scimitar-shaped blade out of the trunk, appreciating its edge in the moonlight.

"Why can it never be a nice little house in Suburbia we have to sneak into?" Leia asked, checking to make sure there were bullets in the chamber of her gun. Dean noticeably flinched, probably realizing as Sam did that Leia, as relaxed as she pretended to be, was actually preparing a weapon to use against Gordon if need be. "Why is it always some creepy abandoned house?"

"It makes our job easier," Sam pointed out, doing the same with his gun. The sound earned a quick, jabbing look from Dean. "Less people around, less questions asked. We're free to do mostly as we please."

Dean interrupted Leia and Sam's relatively candid conversation. "Can we just get this over with?"

Without an answer from either one of them, Dean led the way into the house. Leia and Sam simultaneously slid their guns into the waistband of their jeans, Sam putting Leia between himself and Dean in case he was wrong and some carnivorous vamps jumped them from behind.

They walked into the dining room, where Gordon had Lenore tied up in a rickety old chair, the natural lighting almost allowing him to melt into the background of shadows behind him. Leia was first keyed into his presence when she saw the glint of metal as Gordon reached out to slice Lenore with a blade.

Gordon turned at their presence, flashing them a sadistic smile. "Sam, Dean, Leia come on in."

"Gordon," Dean said slowly, warily, as he stepped toward Gordon on one side of the table, Leia and Sam advancing on the other side. "What's going on?"

"Just poisoning Lenore here with some dead man's blood," Gordon said as casually as if he had told them he had just finished mowing the lawn. He threw them another sickening smile before turning back to face Lenore. "She's gonna tell us where all her little friends are, aren't you?"

He looked over eagerly at Dean, basically ignoring Sam and Leia at this point. "Wanna help?"

Dean shifted uncomfortably. "Look, man-"

"I was just about to start in on the fingers," Gordon said, slicing the blade across Lenore's arm. Leia grimaced as the the dead man's blood poisoned Lenore's veins, sapping her of her vampiric strength. Vampire or not, it was inhumane.

Leia stepped forward. "Gordon, put the knife down."

Laughing harshly, Gordon shook his head. "You think I'm listening to little Leia? You used to work for Jerry Heartsfield, girl. You used to work in the big vampiric leagues. Why are you turning your back against your training?"

"Because this is different," Leia said, making sure to stay behind Sam. If she moved one centimeter in front of him, he would go into crazy defensive mode. "She obviously doesn't want to hurt anyone."

"What's keeping her from turning back to old ways?" Gordon asked angrily. Sam stepped forward now.

"We're letting her go, Gordon," Sam said. Gordon quickly pointed a knife at Sam's chest, and Leia rested her hand over her tailbone, where her gun was resting between her back and her waistband. Dean seemed to be doing the same thing on the other side of the room.

"Hey, hey, hey," Dean said slowly, advancing upon Gordon just as slowly, "let's talk about this. I get it, okay? No shades of gray. That fang that killed your sister deserve to die, but..."

Gordon gave out a creepy laugh. "Killed her? Nah, man, that filthy fang didn't change my sister- it turned her, made her one of them, so I hunted her down and killed her myself."

Dean seemed stunned to stay the least. "You... you did what?"

"It wasn't her anymore," Gordon tried to argue. "It wasn't human."

The pieces fell into place for Sam. "So, you knew all along then, about these vamps being vegetarians. You knew they weren't killing anyone, but you didn't even care."

"Stopping from sucking people doesn't suddenly turn the vampire nice. It doesn't change what they are, what they need, what they crave," Gordon said, lowering the point away from Sam's chest as Leia relaxed a little bit. He looked back casually at Lenore and said, "I'll prove it to you."

Just as Leia's fingers tightened back around the handle of her gun, Gordon grabbed Sam by the wrist and sliced open his arm with one knife, holding another to his neck as he brought him in front of him by arm's length. Leia and Dean's guns cocked at the same time, as Gordon pulled Sam by the arm so his cut hung directly over Lenore's face.

"Let him go," Dean said, yelling for emphasis, "now!"

"Relax. If I wanted him dead, he'd be on the floor by now," Gordon said just as leisurely as he had talked before, watching as Sam's blood dripped onto Lenore's face, transforming her entire expression into one of carnality. Her fangs slipped out from her guns and Gordon wore a satisfied smirk, saying, "They're all the same inside- evil, bloodthirsty..."

He lost his train of thought as Lenore's fangs slid back into her gums and she turned her head decidedly away from Sam and Gordon, repeating over and over, "No. No. No."

Leia could see Dean deflate in disappointment regarding Gordon, but straighten back up again as he bolstered himself to protect Sam from the sadist. Gordon loosened his grip as Sam pushed him away gently but firmly, giving him a disgusted look. Dean commanded, "Lei, Sam, get her out of here and to her coven."

"Yeah," Sam said, reaching down to pick up Lenore, wedding style. Leia kept her gun in hand as she helped Sam wedge Lenore out of the house, hearing Dean confront Gordon. She knew he could keep his own against the vampire hunter; he was angry, betrayed, and needed a punching bag. Gordon would work perfectly.

They worked together to rest Lenore in the back seat, then Sam took the driver's wheel as Leia took the passenger's seat. Several hours later, they dropped her off at a new barn house where a pick-up truck and a man were waiting for her. When he saw her, the man bared his fangs but Lenore shook her head and said, "No, no. They saved me."

The man still didn't look happy about not being able to sink his teeth into their necks, but he nodded curtly in their direction before taking off back to the house. Leia slept on the way back, and it seemed that the trip took no time at all. When they got back to the house, however, the sun was already peeking above the horizon.

Leia waited outside while Sam went inside to fetch his older brother. She could hear something hit the floor, but wasn't concerned; she knew the brothers could handle themselves. Sure enough, a few moments later, Dean walked back out with his usual swagger, followed by an amused-looking Sam.

"Everything okay?" Leia said, giving Dean an optimistic smile.

"Yeah," he said, shrugging as they headed to where the Impala was parked. "This job just messed everything up, you know? Everything... everything's gray now. What if we once killed something that didn't need killing, you know?"

"We did the best we could," Sam said, clapping a hand on his brother's shoulder and reading right through him. "Dad did the best he could."

Dean seemed to ponder this for a moment, then finally nodded as if he felt reassured by Sam's optimism. He walked toward the Impala, but Leia stopped Sam from following as she leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.

He smiled sheepishly at her, asking, "What was that for?"

"For finally being patient with your brother. I think he'll come around," Leia said, giving Sam what he realized was her first genuine smile in a long time. "If he's got you by his side, I don't think there's anything he can't do."

Sam watched with a smile on his face as Leia practically skipped after Dean, who held back the seat for her as she crawled into the back.

It finally seemed as if Leia's optimism was having an effect on all of them. And it was about damn time it did.


	24. 24

The next string of cases blurred together for Leia.

For once, it was nice to not have to worry about anything very serious. Although there were a few scares, the Winchester boys and Leia were able to keep many of the threats under wraps, including a crossroads demon, a Croatoan virus, and the spirits of two ghosts, one of which belonged to the infamous American serial killer, HH Holmes. They only thing that had happened with slight significance was that Sam had found two other Special Children, a pair of twins separated at birth named Ansem and Andy. They pursued them after Sam had a vision of a man in their town committing suicide, and it turned out that Ansem was using their shared power of mind control to force people close to Andy to kill themselves. Needless to say, they ended Ansem's tirade.

The problem was, Ansem's adoptive mother had not been killed in a fire and, thus, the pattern of trends they had seen among the Special Children was broken.

Leia was unsure if their increasing caseload was due to Sam's wish to ignore this fact or Dean's continuing want to pretend like nothing had changed since John's death. Whichever it was, the fact remained that the boys were distracted from their biggest emotional ailments.

However, she knew it was too good to last. So, she wasn't surprised when suddenly, as they were enjoying beers by a lake in celebration of another successfully closed case, Dean suddenly turned sentimental and said, "Sam, I... I lied to you."

She had been standing between the two Winchester boys, leaning against the wooden fence bordering the lake, and she felt the tension that had existed since John's death slightly increase between the two of them. Sam's eyebrows furrowed as he asked, "About what?"

"About Dad," Dean said, wiping his hand over the glass of his bottle to rid of the condensation. "He did say something to me before he died."

Looking at Dean for a further explanation and only realizing after a few silent moments that he was going to have to poke and prod, Sam responded slowly, "Okay? What did he say?"

Dean tried to busy himself with looking fascinated at his beer bottle, but his hesitation put both Sam and Leia on high alert. The elder Winchester was never one for beating around the bush; whatever he had to say obviously was something heavy.

He pursed his lips and ground his jaw before he told Sam, "He said... he told me to protect you."

Sam let out a nervous laugh, saying, "Dean, he's been telling you that since the day Mom got pregnant. What's really going on?"

Shifting his feet uncomfortably, Leia edged closer to the brothers, feeling that whatever Dean was going to say next was going to upset Sam and probably end up with the two of them fighting. She knew that they had been leading up to this for a while, but she realized they had finally reached the boiling point.

She was proven correct when Dean said slowly, "He said I had... I had to save you, that nothing else mattered, and that if I couldn't, that I'd..."

He fell silent again, and Leia was the one to ask, "That you'd have to do what, Dean?"

"That I'd have to kill you," Dean said softly, looking up at his younger brother from underneath hooded eyes. Leia found herself step back in surprise, and she could see Sam's body stiffen with the same reaction. "Sam, I'm..."

"Why did you keep this from me?" Sam asked softly, earning a blank silence from Dean. His voice grew louder with every word as he continued, "What did Dad know? Did he know what the demon planned to use me for? Am I supposed to go Dark Side or something?!"

Leia chose now to intervene, slipping between the two brothers as she faced Sam, resting a hand on his chest. "Sammy..."

He backed away from his older brother, still smoking at the nostrils before he said, "We have to get ahead of this thing. We have to figure out what's going on so we can deal with it."

"No," Dean said, his voice suddenly shifting from meek back to its usual authoritative. Sam looked at him incredulously, disbelieving that his older brother had the audacity to order him around when he had kept such a large secret from him. "No, we need to think this out before we jump into it."

Sam almost jumped into hitting his brother, but Leia stepped between them again, resting her hands against Sam's chest as she told him, "I agree with Dean, for now at least. Let's just take it easy, okay?"

His nostrils still flaring, Sam seemed to noticeably calm down underneath Leia's touch as he finally just nodded and they returned to the Impala for another tense ride. They drove aimlessly all night until finally stopping at a motel to crash. While Leia and Dean both fell asleep, Sam was faking it, biding his time until he could escape.

When he heard Dean shift into REM sleep, signified by his deep snoring, he slowly began moving out of the bed he was sharing with Leia. She moved against him but remained asleep as he leant over and kissed her forehead gently before leaning down to grab his duffle bag and exit out of the motel room.

He took the whole night to drive to the Roadhouse, but it only took until 7AM when, like clockwork, his phone began ringing off the hook, switching between Leia and Dean's numbers. On the other end of the line, Leia was fuming as Dean tried for the hundredth time to reach his younger brother. They rode mostly in silence, both of them so furious with Sam that they were fearful of snapping at each other.

After a call from Ellen letting them in on where Sam was, they headed to Lafayette, Indiana, managing to even track down the exact motel where he was staying. While Dean stayed in the car, Leia went into the room to retrieve Sam, expecting it to be a cut-and-dry extraction.

When she knocked on the door, Sam opened it and sighed, saying, "Leia, I'm sorry."

"Oh, good, you're alive," Leia said, casting a curious eye on the girl who was standing behind Sam. "At least, you are for now."

As if to make good on Leia's loose threat of killing Sam for leaving her without an explanation only to be found with a different girl, bullets shot through the front window of the motel room and lodged itself in the back wall. Leia immediately dove behind the couch while Sam tackled the unknown girl behind the table, yelling at them, "Stay down, both of you!"

"No, I thought I'd just stand up right now!" Leia shouted back at him, and he realized she was upset with him. However, her anger seemed to take the backseat momentarily to the fact that they were getting shot down by some unknown assailant.

When the cascade of bullets ceased, Leia flipped off the safety on her own gun and sprinted out of the apartment. Sam told the girl- who belatedly introduced herself as Ava- to stay put, then followed his girlfriend as she raced behind the building across the street from them, only to hear Dean shouting for her. Sam could also hear one other name: Gordon.

"Dean!" Leia shouted, hoping to cut Gordon off before he could escape. Unfortunately, when they turned around the corner, they saw themselves staring at his car's tail lights.

Leia turned to the wall of the alleyway they were in and kicked a metal trash can. "Damn!"

"Leia," Sam said as he caught up to her, "you need to relax."

She whirled on him, her irises surely filled with flames. "I need to relax?! Sam, if you think for one fucking moment that I even can relax at this point..."

Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in her stomach as Sam leant down and pulled a shard of glass from it. It was a small piece, but surprised Leia with its presence; she hadn't even felt herself get a scratch during the attack, never mind get stabbed. Ignoring her look, Sam said, "We need to get you back to the room to patch that up."

She grimaced as Sam began guiding her back to the room. "This all wouldn't have been happening if you just stayed with us instead of going off on your own little vendetta."

Ignoring her cut, Sam said, "That isn't important right now. We need to figure out where Gordon took Dean."

"Why don't you try calling him?" Ava asked as they reentered the room, earning an annoyed look from Leia and a curious look from Sam. She threw her hands up into the air defensively and asked, "What could it hurt if he simply doesn't answer? For all you know, this Gordon guy could let you all talk to the hostage."

Sam turned to Leia, his face reading as if he had thought it was worth a try. She groaned, pressing her abdomen and said, "You going to start asking me now what you should do?"

He sighed. "Leia..."

"I'm going to go clean this up," she said, grabbing her bag from the floor where she had dropped it, dumping out her first aid kit she carried around. She exited to the bathroom, slamming the door shut as Ava visibly jumped.

She gestured to the door as she whispered to Sam, "Who's Ms. Sunshine?"

"That's my girlfriend," Sam said as he swiped his phone off of the table and dialed Dean's number. To his surprise, Ava was right; Dean ended up answering the phone and giving some vague message in which their code word for a hostage situation - 'funky town' - was used. Obviously, Gordon had no idea they were two steps ahead of him.

When Leia exited the bathroom with a noticeable bump of gauze beneath her shirt, she grabbed her bag again and asked, "What's the plan?"

Handing her the slip of paper unto which Sam had scribbled the address Dean had given him over the phone, Sam pulled a hand through his hair and told her, "We go here. But the problem is, Ava here... she's like me, and she has visions, and she saw me go in and not come out."

Leia's eyes slid over to look at Sam, still angry but now concerned as well. "When you say 'not come out'..."

"This Gordon guy," Ava interrupted, answering Leia, "basically booby traps the whole place with grenades. I don't know if both Sam and his brother die, but I saw the explosion, and I'm assuming that they both do."

Leia sighed, waving her hand in the air, telling Ava, "This is the part where Sam tells me I shouldn't go because it isn't safe."

Now, he was frustrated. "Well, it isn't safe."

"And I lived without your protection for years in far more dangerous situations. Now, let's stop arguing so we can save your brother," Leia said, already beginning to make her way back out the door to the Impala in the lot. Sam and Ava followed closely as she moved to the Bug she assumed was Ava's car. After much convincing, they finally managed to get Ava on her way home and out of harm's way.

Afterwards, Leia and Sam returned to the Impala, where Leia took the wheel. She slammed the chair forward once she was in so she could actually reach the pedals. Sam got in as well and opened his mouth presumably to argue with her again, so she cut him off and told him, "Shut up and let's go rescue your brother, okay?"

Defeated, Sam leant back into his seat as Leia began racing toward the address Dean had given them, plotting the whole way there of how to deal with Gordon and avoid getting blown up. By the time they had arrived at the abandoned house, they had cut out a very rough plan as they checked the front of the house, peeking inside to see Dean tied up and Gordon keeping watch as they had expected.

Circling around the house, Sam jimmied open the back door and took off one shoe, tossing it against the floor as it tripped a wire and they both turned away from the explosion. They could hear Dean's muffled yells and Gordon saying, "Wait, wait..."

Leia held up two fingers, signaling that there must be a second explosion. Nodding, Sam took a smoldering piece of plywood and pushed another damaged piece of wood along the floor until it tripped the second wire. Again, they turned away from the explosion as Sam dropped the piece of plywood like it was on fire- which, it was very close to being so- and they waited only a few seconds before rushing inside.

Their backs to the wall separating the room they were in from where Gordon was now walking, they met each other's eyes as Sam raised a gun to the head of Gordon when he tried to pass them. He growled at him, "Drop it."

Gordon did as Sam commanded, then gave Leia a sad look as she trained her gun on his chest. He shook his head and said, "Leia, do you not understand what you've tethered yourself to here? Sammy is a ticking time bomb."

"Even if that were true, bombs can be rewired," Leia said, clicking off the safety of her gun. "Psychopaths like you are unfortunately that way for good."

He looked disappointed. "That's a shame you think that way."

Before she could really register what was happening, Gordon had taken on Sam, tossing him into the wall that fell beneath his weight before he turned to Leia, who stowed her gun and took him on in hand combat, feeling his every punch and returning with one of her own until she had him straddled.

"Touch her again," Sam growled from above her, "and I will make good on what you think I am."

He lowered the butt of Gordon's rifle to his temple, rendering him unconscious as he helped Leia up and threw the rifle into the mess the explosions and the fight had caused. They made it back to the main room, where they untied Dean and quickly exited the house, Leia and Sam waiting eagerly to show Dean the trap they had made for Gordon.

As predicted, Gordon ran out of the house after coming back to, firing at them in the distance. He only stopped as sirens and wheels on gravel sounded, five cop cars surrounding him out of seemingly nowhere as Gordon surrendered to the officers. Dean looked at his younger brother and Leia in wonder, who were both grinning as Sam shrugged and said, "Anonymous tip."

"You upstanding citizens, you," Dean said proudly, even tapping his brother in the shoulder before they left the safety of their hideout. "Speaking of citizens, what happened to that girl in your motel room?"

Leia bristled as Sam explained about Ava and they got back into the Impala. For the next few hours, everything Sam did was about Ava: calling her multiple times, talking to Dean about her visions. Leia knew that Sam was just excited to meet someone semi-normal that was like him, but she still couldn't help but feel jealousy rage throughout her veins.

It was on about the eight-hundredth call attempt when Sam suddenly said, "How far away is Peoria? I have a bad feeling about Ava."

"An hour, maybe, if I gun it," Dean said, looking sideways at his younger brother and not missing the sigh emitted from Leia, who was sprawled in the backseat. "Do you think something's really wrong?"

Sam hesitated, then nodded as Dean caught Leia in the rearview mirror rolling her eyes. Still, he aimed the car toward Peoria as the next hour was spent with Sam nervously staring out the window and tapping his hand against the dashboard while Leia dozed in the backseat. When they arrived at Ava's house, she almost catapulted out of the backseat as Dean hit the brakes.

The moment the car came to a full stop, Sam was out and running up the driveway while Dean and Leia followed at a more leisurely place. They scoped the outside of the house before following Sam inside, calling for anyone to answer them, but to no avail.

They soon saw why.

Upon entering the house's main drag, Leia could smell the staunch of blood, and was not surprised to see that Ava's fiancee Sam had told them about was tied up in bloody sheets, surrounded by splatters and puddles of the stuff. While Sam knelt down to the floor, revealing that he had found Ava's engagement ring but not Ava, Leia checked the body and Dean turned to the window, calling their attention with a simple, "Guys."

When Dean turned, he had yellow powder on his fingertips, the signature sulfur that they attributed to Sam's all too real Demon.

They all began to worry that if the Demon had taken Ava,

Would he be coming for Sam next?


End file.
